Surgeon's touch
by zman123
Summary: Everyone knows Ann as the nice surgeon across the street that everyone likes and goes to visit when they have a problem concerning their health. Yet few realize that even the kindest and most innocent looking people have gone through just as much hardship and change to get where they are. Knowing your daughter has a hard life is one thing, being able to help or assist is another.
1. Worry

_**"A good parent never puts themselves before their children. They've led a life, while their children have yet to lead one. Don't ask me what that means, you wouldn't understand.": James Possible: 20xx**_

James was a happy, content man who believed himself the happiest man on earth. His smile rarely left his face, and if at all it did. Even while he chased his two misbehaving sons around the house so that he could order them to can the mischief that had gone too far this time, it was still difficult to call his expression an upset one. His voice was almost always upbeat and cheerful while his eyes always seemed alert and healthy even if he had been forced to put in a late night, which often happened in his difficult line of work which required a great deal of attention on his part.

He was an intelligent man, though few were willing to acknowledge him as one on account of a faulty memory which he could not control no matter what he tried.

A few even wondered if the space center only gave him his position on the team out of pity, rather than any raw talent he happened to possess. His forgetfulness had after all often been the point of another's annoyance at him, and had very nearly almost sabotaged many subjects for the group of scientists to whom he worked for. The fact that out of carelessness, poor James had once leaned on a button and launched an unfinished shuttle an entire week before it's intended launch date, was only a nitpick next to the other mishaps he had caused. A few did state that he must have been a brilliant man, and that his usefulness must have far outstripped his occasional failures for him to have not been evicted from the job he had dedicated practically his entire life towards.

Time with his precious family, the one thing that man did value more than his job came at a premium. Short breaks when the Space center happened to be tapped for ideas, or felt like giving its small team of professionals a tiny break to reward their pains which as many expected did not happen very often when science in the ever changing modern world never slept.  
He took these moments, each and every one trying his very best to show just how much his daughter Kim and her two mischievous brothers meant to him despite everything, and how very greatly he treasured his beautiful wife who he had vowed with all his heart to love in both sickness and health.

When he went to the supermarket shopping, his children went with him to tag along for the ride and to have more time with their beloved father before he regrettably had to return to his next big project uninterrupted. It was the little moments like that which really revealed the busy and somewhat absent minded man for the saint he really was.

He was never yelling or scathing at his children despite all the stresses his sometimes awkward life set on him, but as mild and gentle as any father could seek to be.  
Gentle reminders and suggestions took the place of abrasive shouts and undue harshness when he sensed that someone in the household was seeking to ruin the peace and element of trust between one another. For a man of science who spent the majority of his days buried in a laptop mashing at the keys, he was surprisingly good at telling the hidden emotions within people and not at all nervous or shy around the family he saw very little of.

"Treasure every moment of the time you do have with your children. They are precious." he would sometimes wistfully remark to ease his guilt at leaving his kids behind so often when he sat beside his fellow scientists in the high tech laboratory they would gather in.

He only knew all too well what his eldest daughter spent her long days away from home up to, and it wasn't fun for him in the slightest to see her dash out of the house time and time again, so that he seldom saw his three children together as he would have liked on his brief days with no work.  
He heard that Kim had been making quite the name for herself out there as the heroine next door and it really seemed that when the twelve year old high schooler would certainly have the good bright future every good and caring parent wanted for their offspring, surrounded by crowds of devotees and advocates who she had managed to befriend and a lovely young and funny man for her future partner who would never leave Kim's side long after she left her family and home behind her. It had taken a while for James to get used to the idea that a boy that seemed so bumbling and somewhat of a pariah was the one boy his daughter had set her eyes on, but partly with the help of his much more understanding and optimistic wife he had grown to like Ron from the Stoppable family much better when he looked back and saw that he too shared in many of the very flaws he had criticized the misunderstood little boy for. That struck him as both dishonorable and irrational, and neither were good qualities in a good father.

That respect became a deep and unwavering admiration when Kim pleaded with her somewhat angry father who was still struggling over his feelings for that boy she liked, that had it not been for Ron those bullies of her youth might never have left the poor girl in peace and thus her entire life as the much loved captain of the cheerleader squad might never have come into being since she'd still have been the timid shrinking violet she was back then.  
But more importantly had it not been for the brief moments where Ron showed off the hidden brilliance concealed within a socially rejected outcast, Kim explained that she would have been dead many times over by now. The very least she owed Ron by now, was her life many times over. And that was something she could never repay back even if she spent the rest of her life beside her one and only partner that she would ever accept. "I love him daddy." begged Kim. "Please understand me."

"Of course my little girl. Of course" he calmly replied in a voice that had been brought well under control "I know you two will have a lovely future together, and I think he really is a good influence on you Kim."

But even that pure and happy prospect did not blind him to how whilst his daughter most likely could embrace a celebrated life of glory, that it would be a short life of glory. An emphasis on the short since he wasn't joking when he spoke of how he treasured each meeting with the eldest child of the Possible residence as if it could well be the last time.

James knew well what awaited hundreds of completely innocent lives, if not the world were it to be left robbed of his selfless daughter's interventions. His daughter had explained that to him enough times for him to never be able to erase those conversations from his mind even if he tried to forget.  
Yet the brown haired rocket scientist had to make a mammoth effort each time his daughter set out once again, not to grasp the red haired girl by the sleeve and bark at her to give up her hobby once and for all and find something at least slightly safer to do instead.

He was also for all his love for excitement and adventure in his rather somber life, not blind to the risks his daughter came face to face with on a day to day basis. It was if only ironically, slightly relieving to see that the feisty heroine he was lucky enough to have for a daughter seem so calm in the face of such dangers.

But deep down he knew that would make him cry all the harder, should that time happen to come around.

Which was why he spent the first good ten minutes of each morning, hands clasped and trembling with eyes tightly squeezed shut murmuring plea after plea for his dear little "Kimmie cub" to return home safely and soundly with no bones broken in one piece. It was truly a struggle for the worried man not to break down in tears of bliss each night as he heard the familiar voice he had been longing the day for.

A voice from the heavens, from an angel who had come to earth and to his side in disguise as the little girl who called him "daddy." as she ran to him arms outstretched to reassure the clearly worried scientist that nothing bad was happening.

It was the voice he heard now, as he woke with a start from an uneasy dream he couldn't quite describe even to himself if he tried. Still very drowsy and cautious of everything he lifted his head from the dining room table he had slouched it onto, and took stock of his surroundings through blurred vision. He must have dozed off once more and now he would have to stay up even later than usual to finish the load of work he still had left on the laptop he had somehow managed not to lean his weary form onto when sleep overtook him.

But that could wait, he told himself as he staggered to his feet and almost tripped as he made a break for the front door desperate to give the girl he knew was waiting outside the warm and genuine welcome a selfless and devoted daughter like her could only deserve.

And even as his hand made a grab for the doorknob, he looked to the sky and whispered yet another silent thanks to kind fate for bringing her back alive and well once again.

 ** _A terrible way to make the next chapter I know. But it sets the scene... I guess. I understand I'm a very terrible and inexperienced writer with none of the skill and/or attractive qualities that all of those 100 review (or more) story writers seem to have in them._**

 ** _But please do review. I do put my all into writing these and I would really appreciate to know what you think of my hard work and how you feel the tale is panning out. I do read every one of your reviews and they do bring purpose to my otherwise bleak existence._**

 ** _But as usual thanks for reading and I will see you in the next chapter when I find time._**


	2. Paranoia

_**"My brothers might be clumsy, but they're not cold blooded or mean. At the end of the day, they do care about me and it's only right if I care about them as well. It took me a while to realize that. So don't talk about my brothers that way, it's not right.": Kim speaking to Ron about her brothers**_ 20xx

Kim sighed wearily and stifled a large yawn as she managed with a trembling hand to switch off the loud alarm clock rousing her from peaceful sleep. Her so called younger twin brothers the "Tweebs" had that stupid talent show at their school today and her parents had insisted they all be there to witness the big event. This was just great, she thought.

She already had to deal with the usual stresses that High school forced upon every student trying to tough through it, as well as having to anticipate the ever present possibility that some power hungry criminal was going to start wreaking havoc on some major city or whatnot only to make her day as a teenage crime fighting student leading a double life, even less bearable.

Now another hour of having to sit through performance after performance at a elementary school, just so that she could anticipate whatever crazy stunt those two troublemakers were bound to have up their sleeves to make this night truly unforgettable for them all. The best she could hope for was an poorly played song which would probably leave her unable to go to bed afterwards.

She sighed. There were times when she felt she'd give anything to trade away Jim and Tim for someone even slightly less rambunctious and more passive. But then again, she was never going to say that to their face, or at least try her best not to.  
They were her family, and she did promise herself when she found her calling was to go on mission after mission far away from home that she would still put her family first and foremost in her priorities and thoughts.  
To do otherwise was to break her word, and a good girl never broke her word when her loved ones were involved.

So she stifled another yawn as she wearily managed to throw on her clothes before brushing her teeth and trudging down the stairs. She could go another day without a shower, and really she didn't feel in the mood for that now.

She exchanged usual formalities with her family as she took her place at the table, and began to place bite after bite of buttered toast into her mouth. She needed a lot of energy for the day ahead.

School passed surprisingly uneventfully. For one day, no new messages about any particular threats disrupted the monotonous humdrum way of a typical school day for a typical teenage student trying her damnedest not to fail the upcoming exam that decided whether or not she would sit crying at the mark collecting day. It wasn't exactly easy, even for the daughter of a rocket scientist and Brain surgeon, especially when you counted the meager some of how much time she really had when she wasn't on some new life threatening mission to "save the world".

Her parents did have a pretty good point about not letting her dangerous hobby get in the way of her work, and setting times for when she needed to be at home under their supervision no matter what. They were a duo of good people, always well meaning and firm but always for her sake. It was difficult to imagine why anyone could hate two very nice people who you would be lucky to stumble upon even once in a lifetime. But then again as she had learned, a lot of people didn't need logical reasons to find an excuse to flout the law, and even more were more than ready to take advantage of any kindness that was given to them.

Perhaps it was why many of the adversaries she faced were where they were, while she kept her faith and more importantly never lost sight of her original self appointed goal. A noble goal, of doing whatever she could to uphold a set of rules that had only been created in the first place to protect and maintain order in an otherwise chaotic and unfair world we lived in. Why anyone would fail to realize that this was the purpose of the law, she might never know.

But that was enough thinking to herself, she realized as she woke with a start at her name being called by the great big bear of a man known to her class as Mr Barkin. "Face the front Kimberly, or it'll be detention after school for you young madam" he ordered, staring her coldly in the face "it's the last lesson of the day but come on".

She only nodded nervously as she snapped her eyes as wide as she could manage in her wearied state, and did her best not to let every word of what remained of the lecture drift away from her memory. It was important test material after all.  
Even a typical day where her school rival Bonnie, who she preferred for some bizarre reason to think of as a big purple robotic bunny than a human being, decided to be tame and leave her be was difficult. Made worse by how good friend Ron had not turned up to school on account of a blocked nose he had been complaining about some days ago which had only worsened as he battled to be with Kim at school as long as he could.

Other boys never understood why a girl as popular and talented as only Kim could ever be, would want to even talk to a bumbling weirdo like Ron who pretty much screwed up any attempt he made at being popular. And that was why Kim would never accept any other than Ron as her one true soulmate.

It sickened her to remember how she had come dangerously close to betraying the poor boy on several occasions back in the days when she was still naive and selfish only caring about herself despite her goal being to help others. She vowed to herself that those days were over. Not the slickest, wealthiest or smooth mouthed man could persuade her to forget Ronald Stoppable now. Her Ron Stoppable.

But when she did reflect on the early days of their relationship as just friends to begin with, bile would coat her tongue and she would come very close to tears which took a genuine effort to force away. She was much better now to him, or so she told herself. She could only pray that he had sustained no permanent harm from those sad, sad days.

Somehow, she managed to sit through the rest of the lecture without drifting back to sleep. She understood how it broke her parent's hearts to see a detention slip clutched in her hand when she came home from school.

She shook her head sadly when asked whether she could go for a walk with good friend Monique, who looked upon the red haired heroine with sympathetic eyes rivaling those of her parents. Monique knew that now was not the time to provoke Kim further by pestering her fellow friend with unneeded questions. She herself knew how hard Kim worked each day for the good of everyone she cared about, and even some she didn't know.

She only waved respectfully as she let the red haired girl step wearily out of the corridor and through the exit door without closing it after she went.  
Even days when she by some stroke of luck was not called upon to take another life threatening mission, had become difficult to enjoy with the constant paranoia that the next minute her communication device that she had lovingly dubbed "the Kimmunicator" as way of some comic relief would ring once more and she would have to nervously grin as she excused herself from whatever lecture she was bound to have interrupted.

So many people seeked to flout the law nowadays, that the dossier she had prepared some years back for recording down the most major and threatening criminals she could expect to commonly face up to had become disorganized and cluttered.  
New pages in her head were written up far quicker, than she could ever translate those to the pages of the book. No surprise that much of the later entries were more or less illegible and some no better than blotches of dried up ink from where her concentration faltered while writing.

Kim knew she had some minutes before she would have to return home so that her parents might drive her down to the elementary school her two brothers attended, the name of which she could never commit herself to remember.

She could have spent them walking with good friend Monique in the mall, window shopping all the beautiful new clothes that were just bound to have replaced the older less than attractive looking ones she had seen last time she had that chance.  
But time with her friends was not what the red haired girl needed to prepare herself mentally for whatever horrid performance her two brothers would have in store this evening to make what would have otherwise been a more peaceful day with relatively few disruptions, end in chaos and embarrassment.

She'd probably never be able to show her face within 1000 paces of that building again, when the spectators realized that she was their elder sister.

She'd seen what those two smart asses were capable of, being sons of two scientific geniuses and all like herself. And she didn't like it.

So instead she hiked down to a bench which happened to be situated not so far away from the dark and imposing edifice that was Middleton High school.  
Checking once more the clock installed in her high tech communication device strapped to her wrist, she breathed a sigh as she sat on the bench putting her legs onto the hard wooden surface to relax them.

Here she could sit for a few precious moments, alone and in solitude as she watched the city go by in the way it always did.  
This sidewalk was always totally deserted at this time in the evening after her fellow students had gone home for the day.

Yet even as she closed her eyes to get some rest, she heard a faint but macabre cry. Very faint, very high pitched yet no less desperate or pleading despite that.  
Probably another abusive husband beating down on his poor, helpless wife or child again, Kim thought sadly. Shame she couldn't have been there to intervene with that.

She looked across the street to see two men presenting what appeared to be very cheap laptops to a third man, who in turn handed over a large wad of money. She could have sworn she saw one of the two supposed vendors grin as he took the cash and hastily stuffed it away into his wallet. How did she know those laptops hadn't been nicked from, say the back of a truck last week.

But then again it wasn't exactly rational or clever to charge across a busy street still fairly filled with fast moving traffic despite the hour and to go wildly accusing what could simply be two very shadily dressed businessmen about a robbery simply because they smiled.

Very reluctantly she watched the three men part ways, hoping that there wouldn't be any news report on t.v about missing laptops stolen from a poorly guarded store, or worse a store owner who had been held at gunpoint or worse killed when the robbery took place.

Was that a cafe across the street? Were they serving food that had gone off and hoping no one would notice? Kim's small sliver of angst was rapidly becoming a fat snake of panic.

Or how about that office building next to the cafe with that fancy sign on the roof. She could almost picture in her mind, the three people who were bound to be hiding in some backroom this minute, busy printing fake five dollar bills.

What about that smart black car that had just sped past her while she was busy focused on the buildings on the other side of the road.  
Was it on its way to some public venue, armed with a deadly bomb.

Her sight blurred, and her blood seemed to freeze to ice as the red haired girl clutched her incredibly sore head, trying without success to get her legs which had turned to jelly to budge even the slightest inch to no avail. 

It was only thanks to the alarm she had set on the device strapped to her wrist, which roused the angsty pre teen back to her senses.  
She giggled nervously, she must have been imagining things again. All that stress from that save the world thing, must have got to her head yet again. She knew that she had only minutes to dash back to her humble abode if she was not to get told off for not following the strict set of rules they had set for her to be there in time.

This was a family event, and they all had to be there to cheer on the Tweebs even if whatever show they put on did turn out to go badly wrong. "Jim and Tim promised no mischief this time Kimberley, you don't need to worry." James had told her in a reassuring yet taciturn tone when she accidentally expressed her reluctance at the whole charade some days back. But only Kim knew how difficult it was to get a promise out of the two brothers she had been forced to tolerate for how long she forgot. Life had indeed been much easier when they were not there yet. So it stood to reason that any promise they did make, was made only to be broken.

It was dumbly obvious that they wanted their older sister there with them a lot. And that very premise was what worried Kim all the more.

She steeled herself and took several deep breaths to calm herself as she quickly set out for home, eyes half closed and hands trembling.

This was going to be one very special evening those two pranksters had up for their beloved sister. She hoped they realized how lucky those two were to have a sister as tolerating as herself. 

_**Rebonjour! So how is you liking the tale of Kim and her family. I realize that I'm not a very good writer, and I'm not good at writing dialogue or interactions between characters while keeping them in character but I do try. I do work very hard to write each of these chapters, I reassure you and I do read and deeply appreciate any commentary any of you might have. So thank you everyone for reading, and please do review if you have the time. I will see you in the next chapter if it comes out.**_


	3. Good intentions

Kim sighed deeply as she sat with closed eyes in the back seat of the family car, trying to steady and calm herself as best she could for whatever shenanigans were bound to be waiting. She just wanted this day to be over with.

"I know you're tired Kimmie, but Jim and Tim will be really happy to see their sister in the front row seat cheering for them" her dad James explained.

Kim grimaced. Those two had clearly been planning this for a very long time. "Just what exactly are they going to perform anyway?" asked Kim, praying that the reply was not going to involve any kind of playing around with dangerous chemicals or some kind of "scientific" demonstration. She had seen how the last few shenanigans involving those had panned out and she had seen enough.

James seemed to read his daughter's mind. "Don't worry, it's nothing like what you think. They promised no mischief this time." was the surprisingly comforting reply. "It's a song they've been practicing for a few weeks, and they just thought it would sound really nice if they sang it."

Kim's frown relaxed slightly. She trusted her loving father's word and now she at least knew it couldn't be that bad. She was sure even those two couldn't make something as harmless as a song turn into a destructive disaster that would shower everyone in debris like their last prank.  
But wait, Kim suddenly thought back just as relaxation began to override her angst, what if Jim and Tim were only trying to manipulate her parents into letting them perform what they knew could potentially end in disaster and using this "song" as a guise.

"Well um... That's nice. What kind of song is it?" Kim eventually managed to ask. She knew that question after question wasn't exactly the friendliest way to talk to the two adults she cared for the most, especially since it showed a low opinion of the two brothers she was supposed to love equally as much.  
But she needed more reassurance before she dropped her guard.

"They told me not to ruin the surprise for you Kimmie.".  
Kim only shook her head. She was clearly not going to get any more information, and frankly she should have been using this time to rest rather than using it all up asking pointless questions which would get her nowhere. She was going in there, into the crowded auditorium onto the front seats right by the stage no matter what. And they were only a few minutes away from the nondescript edifice she had seen only twice before.

She closed her eyes and did her best to empty her mind of annoyances as she counted the precious seconds that still divided them between their destination.

"We're here Kimmie. Wake up" came the soft and melodious plea of the beautiful red haired woman as she gently shook her sleeping daughter who she could clearly see was not doing well. "Don't worry, it won't be long before we can go home and rest. We're sorry we had to bring you here at such short notice but Jim and Tim said it would be great if for once all of us could come over. Please try to understand that this means a lot to your two brothers."

The woman's soothing words had their intended effect and very reluctantly the sleeping red haired girl's eyelids crept open as she slowly struggled out of the car.

"Yes mom" she sighed apologetically, desperate not to seem ungrateful in front of the busy neurosurgeon who had managed to remain a loving parent even as hospital duties interfered again and again. She truly did feel blessed to have parents so supportive and had always considered them the one reward she needed for her services, since seeing them safe and unhurt meant more to Kim than all the money and fame in the world.

The three members of the Possible family took care to stay close to one another as they hurried through the crowd of people that were also trying to get into the building, pushing through a few.  
They slowed down to catch their breath when they had made it through the front entrance though, and James quickly fumbled through his pocket as they neared the front desk.

"Ticket?" the very generic looking, short man with a tie and grey suit behind the desk tiredly remarked as he wearily held out his hand and struggled to keep a yawn in check.

James sighed as he proudly dipped his hand from his pocket to reveal 3 thin pieces of paper each bearing a different number and today's date. He was incredibly relieved to find that his memory had not let him down on such an important night such as this.

"These?" he replied handing the pieces of paper one by one to the man, who tiredly gestured them towards the flight of stairs leading towards the hall where the cheap event built to raise money for a barely funded education establishment would take place. He didn't even thank them as he waved them away, his fatigued state almost mirroring that of Kim's.

The three Possible's followed the directions provided, before stepping down another set of stairs leading to the front seats by the stage, where they had specially arranged to sit by paying almost double the price. The perfect seat to be hit with something pelted from the stage, Kim grimly thought as she sat in her place trying to get comfortable on the lumpy material which had clearly seen a lot of wear and tear.

Kim sighed and closed her eyes as the already fairly dim lights that threw a meager glow over the room, went out completely. They had only been just in time. Just in time for what though, she was about to find out.

Kim's eyes snapped at the sound of microphone being tested, causing her to briefly look away from the stage as she recoiled from the sound.

Yet the shock was far from over as a bright flare of light struck Kim's eyes as she focused her gaze back or tried to. She instinctively threw up her hands in front of her face, trying to ward off the brightness.

It was only when she had lowered them and her eyes began to regain their vision, that she saw her two annoying younger brothers on the now brightly lit stage in the otherwise pitch black room. To her great surprise, only one of them namely Jim was stood up beside the microphone which had just given her ears quite a beating.  
The other twin Tim sat seated at what looked to be a very large and ornate grand piano.

From her position in the seat so near to the stage, Kim could see that in stark contrast to the rest of the building she had seen thus far that the piano was incredibly well polished so that it almost seemed to sparkle before her eyes. It must have cost a fortune, Kim did think to herself.  
And with the shoestring budget this entire school that her brothers went to seemed to be running, she could only suppose that this piano was bought some time ago when whoever founded the establishment was more devoted to their creation or at least had a larger amount of capital to work with.

Years of being called upon to track down threat after threat had made the twelve year old cheerleader very perceptive, it was difficult for even small details like the amount of dust gathering on any visible item to escape her notice anymore.

But she had no more time to think to herself about the implications, as Jim began his brief introduction, twitching slightly when his gaze briefly slid past his older sister sitting impatiently in the front seat.

"First of all" he spoke, the microphone amplifying his voice to an almost deafening state. "I'd like to thank everyone here for coming. This is an event our school have worked on for a very long time, and simply by being here you've helped our school raise a lot of much needed money. So I'd just like to take a moment to thank you all for your generosity."

He sounded surprisingly professional for a class clown, Kim thought quietly. This was not the kind of greeting she expected from the twin brother she had grown up beside. He really did sound like an entirely different person for some reason.

There was a brief moment of quiet as the young boy's eye fell once more on his parents and sister. But the brief fit he seemed to suffer was only momentary as he quickly averted his gaze away from them and back to the general audience.

"So to begin tonight's show, we'd like to sing you a very special song that we thought really hit home for us." he continued, clearly trying very hard not to look back at the family who he was as nervous as he was glad to see here vouching for him. He knew that a tiny failure here would mean certain death at the hands of either his mom and dad or his angry sister, whoever got their heavy hands on him first.

He cleared his throat briefly. "Mom, Dad, sis, if you can hear me now then please understand how glad we are that you could be here to see us do this. It really does mean a lot to us that you could be here for us, even when we know just how busy you all are with all the more important things you have to take care of. "

He seemed close to tears by this stage. "Mom, Dad. Kim. This one's for you."

Kim closed her eyes once more and braced herself for the worst. Her parents who were less worried, nodded approvingly instead.

Tim began to press his fingers into the piano he was seated at, causing a astonishingly relaxing and catchy little lullaby to echo around the room.  
How he was doing that when she had never once seen him by anything remotely resembling a grand piano like the one he was playing so well now, Kim had no idea. But she did feel a great sense of relief descending over her at hearing a sound so fine. It even made her want to rock her body up and down with the notes, if that was anything to go by.

Her angst began to fade away, even as her surprise grew with every seemingly flawlessly executed chord which seemed to sear into her very soul.

Jim took a quick glance at his brother, giving him a quick thumbs up as he just as quickly turned to face his audience once again. He knew that as much intense concentration as it would take , he had to battle not to look directly at his parents and Kim during the performance lest the words get caught in his throat.

And that would not do, since this was meant more than anything to be a gift to his sister for all the times he and his equally morally dubious brother had rained on her parade. This was not the thanks a heroine who saved their lives and the lives of many others time and time again, should have been thanked. This was not the way anyone half as decent as their selfless sister deserved to be treated.

"Being half as liked for trying twice as hard is a terrible thing for anyone to feel." their mother Ann had once told them when she came back to check on her sons after hastily removing them to their room after a prank gone horribly wrong with poor Kim as the victim. "Your sister has already tried very hard to be nice and kind to you two, and if this is how you treat her, then I'm afraid you'll just make things harder for all of us. Kim is already very tired from all the missions she has to do everyday, please don't make things any harder for her. She already has it pretty rough."

Those were the words that rang in her head in that instant as Jim took the last few seconds before his part to rebuild the focus that had been ruined over remembering the painful memory.

He was only just in time as Tim briefly took his fingers away from the piano keys to give Jim the tiny opening for him to join the song.

Jim closed his eyes to remove any distraction looking at the audience might give him as he put his hand to his heart. He needed not look with his sight, but with his heart.

He began to sing in a deep, calm yet very passionate voice which caused the audience to gasp and Kim to wonder whether this wasn't some attractive looking clone that one of her enemies Doctor Drakken had sent disguised as her brother after secretly kidnapping him.  
It was only the nervous twitch when he had first looked at her and her parents, that told her this was indeed him. A clone would never be able to show that much emotion.

 **"Maybe I'm foolish. Maybe I'm blind. Thinking I can see through this and see what's behind. Got no way to prove it so maybe I'm lying."** Sang the boy, his eyes still closed since he did not need to look to tell that his song was making the impact it was. The fact that no teacher had come on stage and dragged him away said plenty, as did how no one was booing at him yet.

 **"But I'm only human after all. I'm only human after all, don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me..."**

Those lyrics, those sentences Kim could not help thinking to herself. Those words were deep. Almost as deep as the first time good friend Ron confessed his feelings for her or when her parents gave her a comforting pep talk after she had told them about her latest unsuccessful test at school and how Bonnie had laughed at her misfortune.  
Was her mischievous twin brother taking too much an interest on philosophy of religion or something, since he sounded very much like a priest right now.

 **"Take a look in the mirror, and what do you see? Do you see it clearer or are you deceived? In what you believe?"**

Tim's piano playing provided the perfect musical backdrop to bring out the true brilliance of every word in Jim's very philosophical song. Piano notes and vocal notes came together in perfect synchronization and complimented one another like chips next to cod, and jam on plain toast.

To be very honest, if the rest of the song were to sound half as good as the first few verses, Kim wouldn't have minded hearing this song again perhaps on one of her off days to dull the sadness. She did always enjoy a good song to lift her spirits after a tough day of fighting crime, and dealing with Mr Barkin's lofty expectations for her.

 **"Cause I'm only human after all. And you're only human after all so don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me."**

Kim swore she felt something in her chest at that very moment. A faint surge of pain perhaps, faint as it was she was sure she felt it.  
And what was this tingling sensation in her eyes. She had heard other good songs too.

The next verse was sang louder and stronger, and Jim's already emotive voice seemed to become even more heartfelt as if he were trying to give an inspirational speech rather than singing on a makeshift wooden stage for the pure sake of raising some money.

 **"Oh, oh. Some people got the real problems. Some people out of luck. Some people think I can solve them. Lord heavens above. I'm only human after all, I'm only human after all, don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me."**

Why did a mental image of that woman in the green suit with green tinted skin flash in Kim's mind that instant.  
Why did Kim suddenly wish that this woman and Bonnie were here to listen. She couldn't have put her feelings of pity towards those two any better than this song had.  
Had the Tweebs, her brothers built some sort of mind reading device that could tell them exactly what every person was thinking and using that to make their song sound better knowing she was here.

That would be creepy, but no less touching. Maybe they weren't so clueless after all as to how hard her life really was.

Jim looked down at the ground as he sang the next verse as Tim mashed at the keys with ever more grace and precision than was normal for a young boy his age who had never touched a piano until recently. **"Don't ask my opinion. Don't ask me to lie. Or beg for forgiveness for making you cry, for making you cry... Cause I'm only human after all. I'm only human after all, don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me."**

Why did Jim need to keep reminding everyone that he was human. He had said it at least three times in the song already but didn't seem the least bit hesitant to stick that fact into the end of every verse possible. Was he trying to say he felt regret for his wrongdoings. Was this why he seemed so anxious that Kim come with her family to watch them sing this.

Because if he kept singing that enough times, Kim felt it really would be nigh impossible to call those two "the Tweebs" or any of those insulting nicknames she had made for them over the years. This didn't sound like a half-assed set of sentences slapped together at the last minute just for the sake of snatching a few coins from a bunch of unimpressed spectators who would most likely regret every cent they gave away for nothing.

There was a reason why Jim had been unable to look directly at the three people most impressed with his solid performance, and why Tim kept his sight glued to his music sheet so tightly so that not even all the distractions in the world would entice the new made pianist into turning even slightly to glance at his very captivated audience.

 **"Oh, oh. Some people got the real problems. Some people out of luck. Some people think I can solve them. Lord heavens above. I'm only human after all, I'm only human after all, don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me."**

Jim paused a second, the brief silence saying far more than any words he could have used instead.

 _ **"**_ **I'm only human so I make mistakes. I'm only human and that's all it takes to put your blame on me. Don't put the blame on me."**

At least, thought Kim sniffing slightly. At least they did realize that sometimes they hurt her.  
Maybe a small part of their "pranks" could be forgiven after all.

Don't put the blame on me in this instance, meant something completely different than what Kim supposed they wanted it to mean.

Like a smooth criminal of sorts, pianist Tim struck a crescendo and bashed the notes with all his might rambling off angelic chord after chord, each one more complex and difficult than the last but the youngest member of the Possible family made not one mistake. This was very clearly the finale to an already awe inspiring performance as Jim's voice rose to very nearly a shout all while remaining as calm as he had been throughout what was his greatest masterpiece.

Hours and hours of strenuous practice and skipping breaks, were serving him well now. It felt good to be serious and organized for a change.

 **"Cause I'm no prophet, or messiah.** **You should go looking somewhere higher."**

It was for but a brief fraction of a second, but Kim's powerful vision clearly saw his eyes turn slightly in her direction. She shuddered at how powerful those big blue eyes of his seemed so painful to look at despite all the terrible things he and his twin had done to her.

But what frightened her the most was how she had gone from wishing that her twins would be done with whatever antics they had as soon as possible, to wishing that this song never ran out of lyrics and never ended. She didn't give the slightest damn now whatever other things this show had after this.  
Was this what a certain crazy old man meant when he said some time ago that pen was mightier than sword.

Her new wish however was not fulfilled, as Tim's piano notes began quickly to soften and Jim's voice began to weaken from the passionate snarl he had used just in the last few words. This was the conclusion she never thought she'd be upset to see.

In fact it was the very part of this night she hated the most, as her brother despite being in the middle of a musical number that required most all his attention decided he could look directly at his sister for the last few seconds at least. Whether he was speaking directly to just them in that last short sentence, or the general audience Kim hoped never to find out. One thing that was painfully clear was that since he and Tim were of one mind as identical twins, he had been speaking for them both this whole time.

 **"I'm only human after all. I'm only human after all. Don't put the blame on me. Don't put your blame on me. I'm only human I do what I can. I'm just a man I do what I can. Don't put the blame on me. Don't put yoour blaame on meeee"**

His eyes stayed fixed on his mom, dad and sister as Jim put down his microphone and nervously bowed while rapidly blinking as a thundering applause filled the room.  
He cared not for the cheers however as he took one last blank look at his loudly clapping family before silently turning his back and leaving the room, with Tim quickly following.

For Jim, all that mattered was that Kim was for once not angrily chastising him with those sad eyes he hated to see in his older sister. But more important was the fact that she had deigned to give him a few claps of her hand despite how very confused he could tell she was to see a calm evening with no malice or hurtful jokes.

Only her cheers mattered to Jim. For all he cared the rest of the people watching might well have not existed.

 _ **And another very difficult chapter finished. It really does take a lot of thought and checking to write each of these and I'm really happy if you liked it. Or if you don't like it, I'm very grateful that you've spent your time reading anyway. Please do comment if you like this, or if you have any suggestions on how it could be better. And I will hopefully see you all soon. But bye for now and thanks.**_


	4. Trust

_**"Those who knows when they can and cannot fight, are usually the winners in a battle." - Sun Tzu in his book "the art of war": about 500bc**_

Kim's brothers shared her young age and to a great extent, her happy go luck attitude which was easier for them to maintain with how very little responsibility they had between them compared to her.  
And since the events of last night's performance, Kim had begun to realize that they understood her hardships and struggles better than they had been willing to admit.

Her dedicated and determined dad gave a very good idea of how she had gained so much success in lessons despite the hardship living a double life had placed upon her. He may have been somewhat strict about what she could and could not do, and clearly very afraid about letting the eldest child in the Possible family go out to such risky escapades from the house for extended periods of time so that entire evenings passed when the incomplete family sat sadly at the table feeling even lonelier than usual. Such evenings were awkward at best, for it seemed that when Kim left she took the witty banter that they usually shared along with her.

But say what they might about a busy man who often had his heroic daughter grounded for even seemingly minor mistakes like lying to go to a party, Kim saw no malice in the eccentric scientist she was overjoyed to call her dad.  
He too like her, knew that sometimes to be kind you had to be cruel even to those you really loved as hard as that really was.

James would likely never realize a fraction of the useful things he had managed with his limited time, to teach Kim. Skills which had never proved to be anything but vital for the many life and death situations that Kim found herself engaged in. And even Kim herself would freely admit if asked, that without her father's timely and carefully chosen interventions that she would be dead many times over by now.

As important to the girl as only they and good friend Ron could ever be, their short curled brown hair and narrowed eyes were and would always remain a far cry from the much wider and more sparkly green eyes and long straight red hair of Kimberley Anne Possible.  
Their inability to attain the same degree of precision and care that Kim exercised when she went on her missions did not really help them relate any better to an already fairly distant member of a family that could only ever pretend to be normal.

Kim was as close to them as her schedule and feelings for them permitted her, but deep down acknowledged that this was not how close to her immediate relatives a sister or a daughter was supposed to be.

Something she could not quite put her finger on, meant that as much as she hated admitting so that there could only ever be one person in her family she could say without exaggeration was both a friend and blood relative at the same time, as dangerously close to mutually exclusive as those two events would always be.  
She meant a friend in the way fellow agent Ron was, in the way that she could confide even a fraction of the deep secrets she was forced to keep hidden despite the pain they caused with every passing day.

And being a one person army that more lives than she could ever care to count depended completely upon of course, she knew and kept more secrets than many would ever be able to find in their lifetime. And she was only a twelve year old girl not yet past her high school years.

But one such person in the family that Kim embraced any opportunity to make happy, was gifted this great trust and burden.  
There was not one soul in the cold and untrustworthy world that Kim kept fewer secrets from, one whose knowledge and appreciation of Kimberly dwarfed that of even good friend Ronald Stoppable. Not one person in Kimberly's gleaming emerald eyes was more reliable or trustworthy than the beautiful surgeon who had gone through nine painful months to bring a selfless crime fighting cheerleader into being.  
A special kind of doctor whose services sought to benefit everyone, not just the patients who happened to show up at her hospital with horrific injuries.

A lot of people had difficult jobs. Some would even say that their chosen job was so ridiculously hard that it rotted the senses in their head, while others claimed that they worked their fingers to the bone doing what they did and they desperately needed a break.

"Well it's not rocket science, so get on with it you lazy buggers. I'm not paying you to sit here complaining all day." the uncaring boss would reply to the fatigued employee, and the employee would have no choice but to admit that the jerk did have a point.  
At least it wasn't rocket science, so that must have meant their life was somewhat bearable in comparison to those more unlucky.

For James however this saying designed to comfort meant nothing. "It is rocket science" he would proudly admit, as he briefly stared up from his computer screen to take a few seconds to rest his wearied eyes "And it is difficult. But that's why we need people like us in this world to handle all this difficult stuff too hard for other people. It might be hard, but when you see the good our research accomplishes, you'll see that it was well worth being a top student in school who worked extra hard."

"Well that's not comforting at all." sneered a fellow scientist at a nearby desk, who was not doing so well with his daily tasks as the optimistic James "You only say that to make yourself feel better about how difficult some of us have it."

Said scientist when he noticed that James had gone back to work and not heard his biting remark would sigh to himself "I don't know why I picked this Crapsack job in the first place." before smiling slightly "But at least it's not brain surgery. That would drive even me insane. I can't think of anyone who'd want to do that for a living. Gosh how tough and impossible to handle that would be."

It stood to reason therefore that Dr Possible a surprisingly attractive woman with big blue eyes, should have gone insane with exhaustion long ago.  
The previous two consolations about not having an occupation as mentally and emotionally draining as Rocket science, or brain surgery when the speaker was already unlucky enough to hold the title of rocket scientist meant nothing to the mother and housewife in a family of three.

No longer could she claim that there was always someone with a position worse than hers since the day she earned her final promotion in Middleton hospital, becoming one of a few very lucky and at the same time unlucky individuals in a large crowded metropolis to hold the title of "Neurosurgeon." or as many preferred to call them, the life givers.  
Even the few rocket scientists that were quite easily counted using one's fingers, vastly outnumbered Dr Possible's elite team of brain surgeons equally skilled as her.

Dr Possible, real name Ann was a well spoken off figure who stood for everything a Possible was supposed to possess. Even when her daughter Kim's heroic feats had put her further and further into her home city's good graces, Ann's name was never completely forgotten.

The neurosurgeon could never wander even casually into her hospital without being accompanied by the thundering cheers of every patient who had gathered in the waiting room to see their favorite doctor grace the otherwise bland and detestable outhouse of a place with her awe inspiring presence. She would quietly sigh in anguish at the realization that today would be just as grim and saddening as the day before.

Kids jumped for joy and began to race around the room as strength that had since left their weary bodies renewed itself. Men who had long since bored themselves over reading the same magazines a dozen times by now happily looked up to enjoy for a brief moment, the sensation of having their love struck eyes glued to the oh-so pretty woman clad in that stylish white coat. For a few euphoric seconds the patient allowed himself to pretend that this was in fact his real wife and not the bossy one that kept putting him down with insult after insult when he would inevitably have to leave the hospital and return to his lonely abode.

He would murmur a prayer that it was Doctor Ann Possible he was seen by, and not some other cruddy second rate quack that didn't have the foggiest idea what they were doing to his fragile body that needed a real doctor's touch.  
He would hammer his fist into his face to give himself a big painful bruise when some other patient jumped for joy and stuck their tongue out when they were the ones called to see Doctor Ann. Why did their stupid life matter, and not his?

Now that other selfish and lucky sod would probably never have to feel any pain again, while he would be stuck with this stupid illness forever and ever until he died from all the suffering he was forced to endure. Why Doctor Ann? Why did you take him and not me, he would sadly think to himself as he continued to stare through teary eyes at the monitor knowing that whichever Doctor he did eventually get to be checked by would not have Possible as their last name, or A as their first initial.

He may as well have stayed home and let this sickness kill him anyway. Life wasn't worth living, since he'd never find another woman as nice and honest as Dr Ann again.

"Go away you creep. Leave me alone. I'm fine." he would shout to the other doctor who had caught him about to leave the hospital after waiting a few tense minutes for the patient with no success. "Next time, don't bother calling me unless it's Doctor Ann you're going to put me with."  
Sobbing loudly, the sick patient ran out of the building coughing loudly as he went while clutching his aching head.

Ann who had heard the entire scuffle from her operating room closed her eyes for a brief few seconds to regain composure before quickly moving onto the next seriously injured patient, a young boy who was had been weeping that he did not like the doctor until he briefly dared a glance upwards to see a kindly and angelic face that reminded him so much of the beautiful but dead mommy he would never see again.  
She did feel bad for the poor stranger she had not been able to help, even if she never knew him personally. She knew him to be a good and humble law abiding citizen though, from the few words he and the other doctor exchanged.

The boy shivered slightly upon seeing Doctor Ann, but eventually managed to compose himself enough to ask what she was going to do to him.

"It's alright, don't cry. You're among friends here." Ann gently said, giving the shivering boy's small form a gently pat.

"Are you, Are you the doctor." the blonde boy asked, almost choking on each word he managed to force out.

"Yes. I'm here to help you feel better so you can go home happy and well again. Now please..."

"I don't, I don't like doctors." the boy cut her off mid sentence with a stutter in his shaking voice. He seemed close to tears. "I've seen a lot of doctors and what they do to other kids like me."

"What do you mean?" asked the doctor, her patient and gentle voice inviting confidence without demanding it.

The boy wished he didn't feel so weak. He wished that his legs and arms could carry him far away from here so that he could get far far away from this building full of those horrible people called "doctors". He had seen far too many of these so called doctors laughing crazily as they dismembered helpless little children smaller than himself with those gigantic things called chainsaws. The blood, the screaming, the evil laugh the doctor let out as the madman cut apart his victim on the spot.

There was that other doctor, that other one that everyone kept talking about.  
That one was even worse. He heard that this evil doctor had a really evil assistant who could shoot fire from her hands.  
His name, the boy never really caught but he didn't want to know.

"Doctors do bad things." sobbed the boy, still wishing he could just jump out of the hospital bed and make a dash for the exit "Doctors hurt people."

Ann silently cursed. She knew that this poor child had been let near far too many horror shows not meant for a minor of this age, and another Doctor she knew very well was at his ways again. He might have been as harmless as a pillow compared to the other criminals, but people sure did know him.  
If his plan was to draw attention to himself instead of take over the world, he was certainly doing a great job of that. It wasn't this poor boy's fault that so many people feared the clinic now, and he certainly wasn't alone in this irrational fear.

"I know there are bad doctors out there who want to do bad things. I understand what you mean" replied Ann choosing her words very carefully. "But please, you have to trust me because all I want to do is help you get better. But I can't if you don't tell me what's wrong. Please. I don't want to see you hurt like this. It hurts my heart so badly."

"That's what a lot of bad doctors say" scoffed the boy sarcastically, regaining a touch of composure "They always try to trick the children into thinking they're good people and then they take them away from their parents and do all kinds of horrible things to them. I don't trust you one bit."

Ann realized she was never going to get anywhere with her patient this way. She changed the subject.

"You're a very brave boy for coming here to talk about your problems." she praised, "But I don't know your name. What is it? ".

For a lot of the other doctors, a name seemed a very superficial thing that remained well hidden to both them and their patients during any appointment.  
Perhaps they never realized like her, that a person's name could determine the outcome of their lives and what kind of person they were. A name said more than a lot of people thought it did.

The boy seemed slightly relieved to hear this compliment. It was a long while since anyone had praised him for doing something right.  
It had been a long time since anyone asked him for his name too. How he always dreamed for a chance at saying his name.  
The few times he did though, people laughed at him.

But that compliment sounded so sincere, he couldn't resist the temptation of telling this at least somewhat nice looking lady his name.

"My name is Tyler." he shyly replied, praying to the heavens that his name would not be made fun of once again.

The reply he did get was far from what he could have hoped for "Oh Tyler. That's a beautiful name. So... Like Tyler from that that film, Fight Club?"

For the first time that day, the injured Tyler cracked a grin. It wasn't everyday that people recognized his name for what it was meant to represent. This doctor really seemed to get it.

"That's right... And what about you Doctor, what's your name?"

"My co workers call me Doctor Possible. But my friends call me Ann."

"Ann" Tyler murmured to himself. He had to admit, very few grown ups had been this outgoing with him and he detested that. How he hated having to address two very strict and detestable teachers in his school as Mr Copath, and Mr Eeless.  
It took him a lot of snooping around to find that Mr Copath's real name was in fact Si, and mr Eeless's name was actually Murs.  
And when he did call them that, they had him promptly sent to the bad boy room with no questions asked so that he got no food that day for the entire day.

"You mean, like the Ann who wrote that lovely book, that dairy I love reading. Like that girl who refused to change what she believed in, even when other selfish jerks wanted her dead over something so stupid." he said, praying that his words would not be taken for utter crap like a lot of the other grown ups did when he mentioned his favorite book.

"Yes." replied the young surgeon wistfully, seemingly glad to find someone who shared so many interests "I know the story. It happened during world war two didn't it."  
She knew from his name, and how he spoke that Tyler was not someone easily frightened by mature concepts such as war and conflicts. Doctors and clinics yes, but she was fairly certain that if he liked that book as much as he sounded like he did, he could take such things as wars at least being glanced over lightly.

"That's the one." he confirmed almost as wistful "It was such a good book too."

They talked briefly, discussing how very few were prepared to stick up for their beliefs when others would long have yielded out of fear or other things.  
"They're clearly not good heroes if they do that." Tyler and Doctor Ann both agreed "Since a good hero is one who laughs in the face of fear like Ann did in world war two". Ann felt a huge tinge of pity at saying that. She resisted the urge to tell Tyler about a certain very special daughter she was lucky enough to have the pleasure of bringing up and teaching. That would only make him feel jealous since it was obvious from how he was quick to confide in the first person he had the courage to trust, that he had never had a happy family like Kim had.

Not to mention as the first Tyler would have put it, you didn't talk about fight club, or in this case you didn't talk about team Possible. Her daughter's trust was on the line here.

It truly was striking how many similarities she and a random stranger just happened to share, despite how fearful he was of her at first sight.

How she would love to have continued the conversation by telling the lonely kid, that the third rule for Kim's missions was that if the opponent went limp or said they quit by raising their hands or tapping out that Kim had to end the fight and show them mercy. Or that the seventh and possibly most important rule was that Kim's missions could go on as long as was needed to bring the threat to a close, but never longer since Kim would then be expected to return home and report the outcome to the family whatever it was so they could see her safe and well.

But time was short and patients were waiting. And Tyler and Kim could never meet, since her new friend the patient would likely take better care when he left the hospital meaning it would be long before he had any reason to return.

"I feel better now. Thank you doct... I mean Ann."

"You're welcome Tyler. So would you like to tell me what's causing you so much pain now."

Tyler looked up and down the room to check they were still alone, before nervously beginning to describe the embarrassing series of incidents that had forced him to be compelled to come here.  
He begged the surgeon not to reveal any of what he was telling her to anyone, and to say nothing of him or the conversation they had just had as he fervently apologized for his earlier behavior as well as insisting that he now loved the doctors.

This one at least, he was forced to admit. "I still hate the other doctors just as much. Especially that horrible one with that assistant."

"You have my daughter to thank for keeping him well away from this sacred place." Ann said to herself, as she placed a mask over her face and got to work, following Tyler's surprisingly well worded descriptions of where exactly it hurt.

Tyler was moved to another room soon after the operation was over.  
The operation was finished and the pain seemed to be lessening, but somehow he felt like was going to cry again. Until this joyful day, he had loathed each and every doctor he had the rotten luck to set his eyes on and he would gladly have kept himself at arm's length from even laying eyes on that frightful looking hospital he now found himself in.

His worn out voice he had spent on the one conversation when an adult did not look down on his odd behaviors or consider him vulgar or disturbed in any way.  
He could only silently look back at the beautiful red haired lady as two other doctor's came and placed him onto a trolley and pushed him into another room.

His one hope at ever seeing happiness again came from coming back here. But the only way to do that was to get himself seriously injured again.  
And Tyler was selfless enough to realize that people who did that, put other patients needing such assistance at risk of a cruel and unneeded death.  
But no one would listen or understand even if he could bring himself to protest, so he only silently wept in the new and unfamiliar ward the doctors left him in.

Time flew despite the many other patients rushed one by one into and out of her room, and time to leave work soon came.

It had not been a good day, Ann thought as she slowly trudged out of the hospital giving a brief good night to the few coworkers she was lucky enough to cross paths with at this late hour when most of the less senior staff had already left for home.

She too sought to prevent loss of life like her daughter Kim, just in a different way. While her daughter sought to minimize injury from accident or criminals outside this hospital, Ann stayed here to try and save those who had already sustained life threatening injuries that even Kim and her friends could not prevent.

Yet so many people these days missed the point of her and her team of other doctors stationed here. While her daughter was looked upon as the hero who saved the world time and time again, outside the hospital Ann was seen as little more than a lazy slacker who did little more than hide cowardly in a medicine cabinet while her much more able daughter did all the work and got jack done.

She was used to seeing patients wait long before coming for a check up, after that other doctor dragged her and her team's name through the mud with his selfish antics. Antics that hurt innocent and helpless citizens much more than he thought they did.

"Rule one, don't talk about team Possible." she found herself muttering quietly as she got into her car parked outside the building and slowly began to drive it off down the street. "Rule two, always follow rule one. Don't talk about team Possible. Rule three..."

The conversation she had just had with that nice and innocent child Tyler had made her very happy to see that not everyone was wasting away their time playing violent and unrealistic games which taught them nothing useful, or watching completely nonsensical cartoons which only made them grow to become very unsuccessful and confused grown ups unable to feel true happiness anymore.

But it had made her very traumatized too. And not just because another patient who was practically begging on his knees to see the one doctor he felt was not a scary doctor had run out of the hospital while she was busy trying to help another patient, and said patient who had dashed away from medical attention would probably find that nasty cough getting worse and worse.

It was difficult not to talk about Doctor Ann's favorite movie, without thinking of the harsh truth of how her daughter secretly held a degree of admiration and sympathy for that "assistant" with green skin and glowing hands.

And saddening, very saddening to realize that "Tyler" was only brought under control when the main character shot himself in the head.

It did feel good for a mom to see that her daughter trusted her enough to tell her so much about her second life which she was supposed to keep a low profile about. And at the same time, a very heavy burden which only made Ann feel even worse that she could do so very little even with all this information.

 _ **A super chapter that ended up being far longer than I expected. I don't really know what to say. Please do comment and review though. And once again thanks for reading.**_


	5. Misunderstandings

"This is my entry." said a student excitedly as he handed over a large A4 sized portrait to an older prefect who nodded in approval.  
The student was sure that this year he would surely take the trophy of best artist for himself, no risk attached and no sweat.  
The beautiful and expensive paints he had used to depict his beautiful mother and the dashing gentleman that was his daddy, he was sure would really blow everyone's mind.  
He did love those two adults who were always there for him when he needed them the most and he was not at all afraid to show it.

"This is beautiful" said the tall student who was acting as this years prefect to help get the arts competition underway as he briefly glanced the painting over. "I'm sure everyone will love it, even if you don't win first prize. I think you did a wonderful job."

At such high praise, the novice artist almost shed tears of joy as he thanked his senior and quickly moved away to get back to class.  
It didn't really matter at all if he didn't win, everyone who saw his painting would really know how wonderful people his mommy and daddy were.

"Next" announced the prefect, yawning slightly. This years art theme was about family, and great was his surprise at how many lovely entries the students had given in. They would surely make quite the display when the parents came to see just how creative their kids had been this year, and what beautiful pieces of art they had submitted in honor of their families.

Already the walls were patterned with drawing after drawing of happy, smiling men and women that were no doubt the mothers and fathers of the children drawing the pictures.  
Some even put themselves in the picture, to further emphasize the love the student still shared with mom and dad, despite being in high school and becoming more and more independent with every passing year.

Some students decided to be creative, and made a little comic of a happy day together with them and their family enjoying some good together time together.  
It was actually really difficult not to fight back tears of joy, when one looked closely at them.  
That picture in the far corner with that charming man hugging his daughter for instance, how vibrant his expression was and how adorable the girl looked as she enjoyed the tender embrace which would likely last but a while before father and daughter went their separate ways once more. His suit, her bowtie on her hair, the painter had clearly not wanted to miss even the slightest detail and had really poured every bit of their soul into what was clearly meant as their greatest masterpiece.

Everyone in Middleton may have been a unique and different child with his or her own likes and dislikes. But judging by their works of art, the one thing they all shared was the affection each felt towards their family. The people who'd be there for them long after their friends left them to their fates.  
With the possible exception of that mean and selfish girl Bonnie, who had refused to submit anything for house art on the grounds that "painting stupid pictures was for uncool losers and that she was not a loser."

And certainly this young lady with red hair and a passionate grin seemed very much in touch with her loved ones.

"Do you have a piece of art to submit too?" asked the tall, handsome teenage boy enthusiastically.

"Indeed I do." the girl replied. Having to go on dangerous missions time and time again didn't mean she couldn't use some of her free time to engage in a few extra school activities like submitting a piece of art. She did want to show that she genuinely cared for her school after all so that she had something meaningful to show her parents when they came. The last thing she wanted was for the school to say that she was not engaged or contributing to anything around school. That'd just make them sad, and possibly even more anxious about her "hobby".

"Excellent. Let's have a look" he said as she handed him a large piece of paper she had carried with her. His eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing another happy family portrait, but quickly dimmed as his excitement turned to confusion.

"Why are there people on the road, and why is there a car?, and arrows" he asked, as he turned the paper around for the girl, Kim to look at for herself.

"The people on the road are my family." she explained, pointing to the large crowd of five. There were two pictures on the paper, and they were identical all except for an arrow which pointed in different directions on the two pictures. "And the one in the car is me. Read the writing beside the two pictures and read the title and you'll understand."

The prefect apologized and brought the picture back to his eyes. A wave of realization hit him that instant, as he realized how stupid and hasty he had been to judge the very well drawn pictures. The arrow was pointing in different directions in the two pictures, in one it pointed at the pedestrians on the road and in another it pointed to a concrete barrier in the other lane.

 **"What should a self driving car do?"** A large title near the top of the page read.

 **"In this case. The self driving car with sudden brake failure will continue forward and drive through a pedestrian crossing. This will result in dead:**

 **1 male executive (Dad)**

 **1 female doctor (Mom)**

 **2 boys (Jim and Time, my two silly but very nice brothers)**

 **1 male athlete (My lifelong friend, and future husband Ron)**

 **Note that the affected pedestrians are obeying the law and crossing on a green signal. "** Read the writing beside the left picture where the arrow from the car pointed straight ahead, towards the pedestrians trying to cross the street. The light showing whether the pedestrians could cross or not was indeed green and displaying a walking stick figure.

The prefect shuddered at the thought of so many dead people, especially since they all looked so friendly with the intricate colors this artist had used to draw them.  
He turned his eye towards the other picture on the right side of the paper.

 **"In this alternate case. The self driving car with sudden brake failure will instead swerve into another lane to hit a concrete barrier. This will result in dead:**

 **1 female athlete (me)"**

The arrow now pointed from the car towards the vicious looking concrete barrier in the other lane. The way the car was drawn made it apparent that it was travelling at very high speeds and that the passenger inside the car, would not survive a collision of such magnitude.

The prefect knew exactly what this meant.  
He had studied arts and crafts his whole life so that no small detail escaped his attention when he put his entire mind to analyzing a picture inside and out. This girl was certainly a very selfless and caring one, that much was obvious from her entry to the arts event. She had clearly taken great pains and effort to get every single detail just right to convey exactly what she wanted to convey.

He didn't need to ask her why the car's brakes had failed, or why the airbag couldn't deploy and save the passenger in the event of a collision.  
He didn't need to question why the driver didn't slow the car down at the pedestrian crossing.  
And he certainly didn't need to know why the pedestrians couldn't just jump out of the way of the car to save the driver the trouble of having to sacrifice their life, or why something as dangerous as a concrete barrier had been placed onto the road at such a bad time.

"Thank you for your contribution to the school" he said modestly as he took the drawing away, trying to fight back tears of remorse. "I'm sure your parents and everyone will love it.".

Evening soon came and a tall frowning brunette stood prowling outside the school howling quietly in anguish.  
Why didn't she charge that stupid phone of hers this morning when she left the house.

The party which she had arranged to be at with Tara and some of her other lackies, wouldn't wait forever for her to arrive.  
The thought of that tall dark and handsome boy she had been hearing about, getting with some other girl when she wasn't there to greet him first. Disgraced, rejected, publicly humiliated when the party rolled on without the guest of honor, why it was more than she could bear.

It never occurred to the brown haired cheerleader to pack some extra money in case of an emergency like this, and in any case she had spent what money she had treating herself to a good tuck in at the lunch counter. She needed it after another long and exhausting day stuck with that nasty brat Kim. Ugh.

"Grrrr" she wailed, stamping her foot hard into the ground, feeling the increasing need to hit something to ease the tension.

Dr Possible breathed a sigh of relief as she drove slowly and carefully, taking care not to let her fatigue and fading sight after a day of hard work affect her judgement.  
She would pop first to the supermarket to get some supplies for the empty fridge and cupboard that Kim's two younger brothers had been complaining about for some days now, before she headed back.

She'd have asked James to do it instead, but from the way he had been showing up to the table yawning and dropping his head as he had been for the past few days, she could tell that he had his own set of problems to deal with and he desperately needed as much time to rest up as he could get.

The doctor decided to take the quick route across Kim's school to get to her destination as quickly as possible so that she could be home well in time for dinner.  
She briefly thought of all the injured people that had turned up to the hospital today, one of whom had eight bullet wounds in his body and was barely conscious when he arrived. It was times like these that the neurosurgeon remembered part of the reason she was reluctantly willing to let her precious daughter go on with her very risky hobby that had become the little girl's purpose in life by this point, knowing full well that Kim got paid nothing for her services. Not a penny.

It was not fun, not fun at all to see innocent and helpless people show up to her hospital, badly injured by law breaking villains who had no qualms with the suffering and danger to life they had inflicted with their schemes to enrich themselves at the expense of others.  
Did criminals really think it was fun for anyone to be a fraction as hurt as some of the patients who now lay drawing what could very well have been their last breaths, their already short and precious life cut even shorter because of another man's selfishness and sadism.  
Did villains not realize the value and importance of life and health, both valuable things that you couldn't put a price on. Two things that once gone, could never be recovered no matter how hard anyone tried.

A young boy's grin became an elderly man's frown, and an athlete's sprint became a disabled cripple's stagger for a lot of the patients who did live. Did that sound like a good time for any of the villains ready to do such evil things.  
What would some of them think really, if they could see how that man coughed and coughed as he fought to stay alive, despite the pain that he was no doubt feeling as Ann and some other surgeons stuck a blade into his weakened form to try and remove the bullets inside him.

Kim was doing the world more good than she was perhaps willing to admit. As a surgeon whose one purpose was to minimize loss of life, Ann knew this for a fact.  
It would indeed be good if one day Kim could come around the hospital once again, and see just how much fewer of these critically injured patients there were thanks to her good deeds.

But those were sentiments for another time, Ann told herself as she shifted her gaze just in time to see what looked to be a young woman dressed in what appeared to be very opulent and expensive clothes.  
As she continued down the road, she could see that the woman had brown hair and was in fact younger than she looked from a distance, about the same as her daughter Kim in fact.

The figure seemed very restless and even from some distance away in the dim light of the evening sky, Ann could see that she was stamping her foot and brandishing her fist as if preparing to smash the next person she met.  
It didn't take long for Ann to quickly decide to slow down the car as she took an alternate road which would bring her closer to this clearly troubled stranger. She couldn't just leave them out there in the state they were in, and they were clearly desperate for help.

Ann stopped her car a reasonable distance away from the stranger, let down the window and in the most sincere voice that a neurosurgeon who was prepared to dive into deep lakes to save drowning people could muster, asked the stranger "Are you alright? You look upset."

The stranger who was by now jumping around and flailing their arms as if not sure what to do next, slowly turned to face the red haired woman with a scowl.

"What's it to you. Leave me in peace and mind your own business why don't you." she replied, clearly finding it difficult not to raise her voice.

"I just thought if I might ask if everything was fine." said Ann, choosing her words very carefully "You clearly seemed upset about something, and I just felt you might have a problem you needed help with."

"I don't need your help" shouted Bonnie as she coldly regarded the stranger looking creep who was looking back at her from behind the window of a very generic red car which had clearly been bought from a second hand shop where everything came cheap. "Just go."

"I can't just leave you here, seeing how you're this sad. Please, just tell me what's wrong. I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is." Ann was even now, realizing that tonight's schedule would be greatly changed and that dinner for the family would most likely go on without her. That would be sad, since time with the family was precious.

Bonnie shook her head. She could tell this mysterious driver wasn't going to leave her alone so easily. Though for a creepy stalker, this woman didn't look too bad or intimidating. The driver was wearing a white coat meant for a professional doctor, if that was anything to go by.  
And the look which the driver was now regarding her with genuinely did seem to show at least some degree of concern and desire to help her out. If this really was one of those psycho's who drove around preying on vulnerable hitchhikers such as herself, then the driver certainly didn't show it.

Not to mention that the party was starting soon, ugh. Bonnie took a few seconds to very reluctantly decide that she'd gamble what she had on this at least halfway presentable stranger. Though she made a mental note to herself to always have one hand on the car door handle to bail out if that woman made even the slightest suspicious movement.

"Have an important meeting to get to." Bonnie said, still keeping a close eye on the driver for any out of place behavior. "Can't be late for it, but now I'm gonna be since I missed the bus and my damn phone ran out of battery just when I needed it so damn bad."

Ann had expected this all along. Why else would a vulnerable young girl be wandering about out here at dark when it was the time to retreat to the safety of one's home for shelter and security from the dark and cold. Middleton was a relatively safe area, but that didn't make it any more worrying to see people wandering aimlessly heedless of the approaching gloom and the dangers that bought with it.

"I guess I can't be home in time for dinner after all. Sorry James. Sorry Kimmie" she whispered to herself guiltily. She couldn't just leave this hapless stranger, and that meeting sounded very important. Her god would always tell her that if she could help anyone out, that it was moral imperative to do so.

"Take a seat and let me give you a ride." offered Ann, once again trying to sound as sincere as she could. She didn't want to imply anything negative, since that would only make the stranger nervous. And if someone else found this poor girl, Ann shuddered to even think what that could even mean.

"It's a really important meeting." said Bonnie as she cautiously opened the a door and tried to make herself comfortable on the surprisingly cozy leather of the front seat.  
"Get me there quickly please." And she gave a brief set of directions.

"Then I shall get you there before you are missed. Don't worry. Sit back and try to relax, we'll be there soon." was the oddly comforting reply. From any other person, this would have sounded like a veiled threat and a perfect excuse for Bonnie to quickly punch the stranger in the face before hurtling out of the car and running away screaming. But this woman's soothing voice, and her earnest expression somehow made Bonnie feel much calmer than she should have felt getting into the car of a random person who just happened to be driving around for no particular reason.

The two sat in silence for a while as the ride continued, Bonnie eventually gathering enough courage to do up her seat belt as she continued to note how strangely attractive this woman looked despite having the same colored hair as her most hated rival and sworn enemy. Yet unlike Kim's overrated hairstyle, this woman kept her's short so that it barely reached up to her chin. Perhaps she felt that long hair would only take too long to tidy and clean every morning, or perhaps she felt shorter hair gave her a clearer field of vision for whatever reason anyone would need that for. Bonnie didn't get it.

The pale blue eyes seemed trustworthy enough, and once again helped remind Bonnie that this was not her most hated rival in disguise here as some part of some elaborate prank to humiliate her even more than she had been humiliated today.

"So, what's your name." the driver gently asked after a while, her voice making it clear that she did not expect Bonnie to give an answer.

"Um..." Bonnie felt as if this was a probing question so she felt reluctant to give any kind of answer apart from a shut up. But that would be a bit excessively rude, even for her and this stranger certainly was proving to be very useful and dare she say it, quite kind to be willing to get her out of such a bad situation.  
Once again, the driver's gentle voice made her intentions seem a lot less dubious or worrying.

"My name's Bonnie. Best cheerleader in Middleton high school. I'm the best one there is and the rest are all drips." Bonnie eventually replied, feeling a strange sense of guilt for every second she evaded the question. The way those big blue eyes looked at her, she couldn't decide whether to call it friendly or creepy.

"Bonnie... That's a nice name.". A brief silence as the driver seemed to stop to reflect over something. "So why do you sound so sad today Bonnie. Something must be wrong."

"Why do you even care." retorted Bonnie impatiently. That was too many questions, and she still wasn't sure she could trust the driver. Someone who asked her this many questions when they had only just met her for the first time was almost certainly up to no good.  
Bonnie knew that for a fact.

She couldn't tell if the driver was being invasive or concerned for her well being when after a brief moment of tense silence the red haired woman spoke again, her voice still soft but now very anxious.

"I can tell that something is very wrong, and I want to help you. But I can't help you if I don't know what the problem is. And if there's one thing I've learned in my days in the hospital, one thing at all that I can take away, it's that hiding a problem away will only make it worse and worse. A lot of patients come to the hospital, only to hear that it's far too late for them because they came too late. But Bonnie, you don't have to be one of them."

Ann thought she recognized this girl all along. So this was the rival and school bully that her poor daughter Kimberly "Kim" had to put up with every day at school. Kim had told her mother about a Bonnie Rockwaller beforehand, but her details had always been vague as if she didn't want to say more than was needed to be said.  
Ann knew that "Bonnie" was a mean and selfish person who had formed a grudge against her daughter for a reason even Kimberly could make no guess at. That was about it.

Kim was a good girl, what more could Ann say.

But Bonnie needed help too, that much was obvious. Anyone with enough common sense not to jump off a cliff at the drop of a hat, should have known at first sight that there was no way Bonnie could go on existing like this for long.  
Ann really wished they were at the hospital right now. She would have put Bonnie up as an emergency case with the highest priority possible.

"Why should I trust you?" barked the school bully, angry and insulted "You probably wouldn't understand even if I did tell you, so forget it and just drive. We're nearly there anyway."

Ann paused a moment. She needed exactly the right words if she was going to convince Bonnie that she needed to get help now and quickly.

"It's alright Bonnie... I'm a doctor. I help people. Anything you tell me will stay between us. Doctor patient confidentiality is a very important rule for me. So please, tell me the problem." It wasn't as if Kim needed to know what kind of people her mom had been interacting with in the time she was supposed to be spending with the rest of the family. And to be fair, it was probably best Kim didn't know for now."

Those eyes again. Those alluring, big blue eyes which were so hard to resist. Bonnie wondered if the driver knew how attractive that look was to her.  
And how the driver was still keeping focus on the road ahead while talking was certainly impressive.  
Bonnie sighed painfully. She had already made one gamble tonight of trusting her fate to the first passer by who just happened to offer her a lift at such a convenient time, and it seemed to be turning out well enough. Well enough that is, that the driver she was relying to take her to the party was taking her to the party and not six feet below instead. Another gamble couldn't possibly turn out much worse now could it? She had risked everything once, and this would be little more than another risk. She had nothing to lose by spilling her guts out, and to be very frank she needed to get it off her chest anyway.

So she struggled not to cry as she gave a much abbreviated tale of how her two sisters had mistreated and very badly abused her throughout her joyless youth before she had the misfortune to come across the incredibly annoying Kim, who soon took much of her reputation away from her without so much as a care in the world.  
"Connie and Lonnie are idiots who aren't worth the space they take up." she sulked, a quiet fury in her almost breaking voice. "And Kim is the biggest loser of them all for doing what she did to me."

"I'm sorry to hear that." said the doctor, genuinely sounding sad. "I would, I would love to offer my home to you Bonnie."

"That's nice of you to say. That's nice." Bonnie managed to state as silence descended once more for the remainder of the journey, as Ann took a few more turns.

"Well here we are." said Ann, shaking the clearly very tired Bonnie gently to wake her back up. "I said we'd be there soon, and here we are. I hope you feel better soon."

Bonnie almost gasped in happiness as she saw that this was indeed that grand and impressive building where Tara had informed her the party would be taking place.  
She had to admit that the driver had done quite a good job getting here so quickly. She didn't have a watch, but she could tell from how the sky hadn't gone completely black yet that the ride had taken the shortest route here possible.

"Thanks. I guess." admitted Bonnie as she slowly opened the car door, still amazed at this fortunate turn of events. "Evening to you."

"And to you. I hope your meeting goes well." Ann waited a few seconds as she watched a surge of happiness descend over the young woman as her passenger quickly rushed for the building ahead, a spring in her step.

Then she slowly began to turn away. There was no need to tell Bonnie who she was, and quite frankly better this way.  
The conversation would have been much harder then, and the last thing a doctor wanted was a patient not willing to share their life threatening problems out of fear or some other trauma.

She hoped that they could have more conversations like this, where Bonnie could share her inner sorrows and grief knowing she was among a caring friend ready to hear her out.

It was exceedingly clear that the way Bonnie was acting meant that she was already beyond most kinds of help anyone could or was willing to give a deranged sadist like her.  
A qualified neurosurgeon like Ann who understood the human mind inside and out, was probably Bonnie's last lifeline now.

It was just as her father had told her when she was a much younger woman like Kim and Bonnie, she thought to herself as she slowly began to turn the car homeward. As long as someone had a good life they couldn't complain, yet a lot of bullies didn't really have good lives. They had every right therefore to complain.


	6. Patients

There were times when Ann wondered just how really depressed and worn out her daughter Kim had really become over the years.  
Having to deal with a bully at school, and a deranged ex heroine turned criminal outside of school as well as two brothers who didn't exactly make life easy for the already overtaxed young enforcer that was her daughter.

Why Kim chose this line of work as a "hobby", Ann would never really have the answer.  
She simply stopped thinking about it, having realized that if her daughter didn't go on these dangerous errands then someone else would have to.  
The only relief she did get was that once in a fit of panic when she let slip the extremely inappropriate question "Kimmie. Do you think I'm a good parent or not. Because I don't feel like one." the only reply the distraught mother received from her smiling daughter was a surprised but serious "Of course".

Kim then placed a comforting hand on her tired mother's shoulder before continuing to insist that these fears which Ann was having were irrational and that she had probably just had another hard day in the hospital again.  
"But mom. Really. I wouldn't trade you, dad or my two brothers away for anything. I mean it."

"But Kimmie. I don't give you anywhere near as much time as you..."

"You gave me all the time you could mom. And that's really all I could ask for. And if you aren't there in the hospital, who knows how many innocent people won't be saved. Just as who knows how many innocent people will be at risk if I didn't make that website and start doing what I do now.  
Those patients in the emergency room aren't going to save themselves mom. Just as those villains trying to do stupid and dangerous things aren't going to stop if someone doesn't go and stop them."

Ann was at a loss for words then and only nodded, fighting back tears that were trying to force their way out of her eyes. Grown ups were too old to cry she told herself, and she couldn't let her daughter see her more sad than she already was.

"You'll feel better after some tea mom. Sit down and take some time off." said Kim as she took the kettle to the sink to try and boil some water.

The conversation ended there. Mother and daughter realizing that further discussion of this futile topic would only make them both sadder and more worried than they needed to be. It was those kind and comforting words of encouragement that Ann thought back on when she felt her fingers beginning to lose strength, and her vision beginning to blur from exhaustion. When she saw what she thought was an injury far too mortal for anyone to recover from, even with her help.  
Or when fear and doubt threatened to make her force Kim not to go on her next out of town mission.

As difficult and dangerous as Kim would make the next mission sound, the reminder her daughter had given her that evening during what very nearly came to a mental breakdown for her put her back to where she knew she needed to be even as Kim's parent. Prepared to let her girl out of her sight so that what needed to be done could be done. And so that loss of life could continue to be minimized and maximum happiness for all maintained.  
The basics of utilitarianism in a nutshell. The set of morals closest to perfection as far as Ann and her family were concerned. Even if it meant that every time Kim went out of her sight that she risked not coming back ever again, this had to be done.

Ann had a crazy dream from time to time when she lay down to try and get a good night's rest in preparation for the busy day at the hospital tomorrow.

In that dream, one of Drakken's experiments had gone awry, causing her and her daughter to trade ages with each other without anyone else knowing except for Kim's good and friendly friend Ron, and her trustworthy husband James.  
The surgeons would rush over to the Possible household and haul Kim away to the hospital thinking she was the masterful neurosurgeon who was the only one capable of performing the next major operation, successfully while global justice took Ann away to brief her for the next top secret operation which was almost certain to end in death for someone less skilled than who they believed was a modest cheerleader.

Ann would not run, not try to explain what had really happened to cause this mix up or that she was not equipped with the correct set of skills for this incredibly difficult task.  
She would instead hurriedly grab a pair of sunglasses before global justice came, to conceal her blue eyes so global justice did not suspect anything and claim that she had just had a haircut after she got tired of her long and overly exaggerated hairstyle kept getting in the way of her line of vision and threatening the success of her ventures.

Kim would of course, open her mouth to complain hotly but Ann silenced her daughter with a sympathetic shake of the head even as the surgeons burst in through the door to whisk Kim away thinking she was the real Dr Possible.

She would smile as global justice escorted her in an armored car to their base of operations, happy that Kim would never have to worry about another life threatening task ever again. That her daughter's new life as a doctor in a hospital was much safer and most importantly much less violent.  
Kim hated fighting since it went against everything she had been taught, and loathed the idea of violence since after seeing the terrible things it drive once innocent and harmless people to.

"It was violence that drove a perfectly happy and kind girl like Shego to become the terrible person she is today." Kim once went so far as to state, shaking her head sadly as she did so. "And the last thing I want to become, is another Shego. But that won't be easy."

But now Kim would never have to fight another battle again. Now Kim could have the pleasure of putting people back together rather than taking people apart. And now the troubles of high school, of being picked on by the cruel and sadistic Bonnie and her gang. They'd be her mom's problem now, not her own. Her mom would be the one risking her life out on the dangerous high risk jobs which paid nothing.

Only the luxury of relative safety a hospital room free of dangerous criminals and the large wads of cash the job of a neurosurgeon paid out, were Kim's worries then.  
Why did it matter if they each had to keep their sunglasses on to hide their true eye colors.  
Ron would be overjoyed at finding that his Kimberley was safe inside the hospital and not in anymore danger, and so would James.  
But then just as the dream was getting to the best part, the alarm rang rousing the sad and angry Ann Possible back up to go to work.  
She was still the grown woman she so wished she was not, and Kim would once again be torn from her sight as her cellphone rang again to direct her to whatever evil mastermind was out to try and match her, even though no one matched wits with her brilliant daughter.

"That sounds more like a nightmare than a dream" the patient remarked after Ann finished telling him the story of her sweetest dream.  
The operation had been very tedious and painful, but Ann's story made the entire thing so much more pleasant and joyful.

"If I had one wish. That'd be my wish." replied Ann sadly. "I hate my age."

"Well then you're a good parent. Not like some." praised the man, looking at his surgeon with a new level of admiration. It wasn't everyday he found a doctor this willing to help him, and it was even less he found a parent this good. How he wished his parents had been this good to him when he was a boy. Perhaps he wouldn't be nearly as depressed as he was now.

"Don't ever stop being the good mother you are now. Ann" he pleaded as he got ready to leave the hospital. "Don't ever stop."

The hospital was surprisingly empty this morning. The tide of injured patients surprisingly slow. And so to while away the time, Ann took out what she called her patient book. A book with all of the main patients she could expect to see more than once, each of whom suffered from a variety of different ailments invisible to the eye.  
She had worked on it for a long time now, taking care not to let anything tarnish the still tidy and tear free pages.

 **Patient 0**

 **Name: James Possible  
Personality: Trustworthy.  
Gender: Male  
Description of Illness: A severe impact caused by a heavy blunt weapon put to the back of the patient's head, has left him with permanent memory problems which he cannot control despite his best efforts.  
Further notes: The patient does not seem depressed or even sad despite being insulted several times for his handicaps.**

"I'm sorry James" she whispered, very close to tears. He did not deserve all the insults people gave him, and if those people knew what had made him like this then they would see what she saw in her husband.

She quickly flipped the page before her emotions got the better of her.

 **Patient 2**

 **Name: "Shego"**

 **Personality: Apathetic.  
Gender:Female  
Description of illness: Severe family problems has caused the patient to become very distant and cold from their family. A mixture of other factors including depression, seems to have caused the patient to have a very twisted moral compass and desire to flout the law.  
Further notes: The patient does still seem to be a good person and seems to still have a very strict set of rules they follow even after deciding to discard their old morals.  
**

"You need to go back and talk to your family Shego. And you really need to stop this grudge you have against Kim. Kim doesn't hate you Shego, she just wants to stop you breaking the law and hurting other people.".  
Even as Ann said those words, she thought back to that lovely collection of photo's her daughter had entrusted her with. Photo's of the brief time when they were able to be good friends together, even if during the friendship Shego had been under the influence of a mind control device that switched her personality.

The only real difference between Kim and her rival, if anything was that Kim followed the law while Shego broke it.  
And that was why they couldn't be friends.

The next one was a good one.

 **Patient 3**

 **Name: "Drakken" Drew Theodore Lipsky.  
Personality: Misunderstood  
Description of illness: Constantly being looked down on and bullied during high school has caused this man to became bitter about the world around him and desperate to go any length to prove his worth, even if it means hurting others and breaking the law.  
Further notes: The patient once had a much better relationship with my husband and myself. He also still seems to have a strict set of rules he still follows even when they make hurting others much harder. He also does not seem to understand the actual meaning of the word "Doctor".**

A doctor was supposed to help others, not hurt them. Perhaps if poor Drew understood that then people would begin to like him much more.

But as treasured as all of those entries were, and as much a pleasure as those were to read. None of them even came close to the page Ann had dedicated to Kim's beloved boyfriend Ron.

 **Patient 1**

 **Name: Ronald "Ron" Stoppable (will become Possible in the very near future.)**

 **Personality: Loyal  
Description of illness: A type of depression. Symptoms include  
-low self esteem  
-constant feelings of sadness without seeing Kim by his side.  
-A feeling of not belonging to society.**

 **\- Constant headaches, and nausea as well as difficulty in smiling.**

 **Further notes: Patient 1 seems to also exhibit traits similar to patient 0. The patterns they share in problems involving things such as memory and decision making abilities seem very similar. Further investigation will be needed to tell if Patient 1 also suffers from head trauma.**

Reading those entries had made the surgeon even more proud of her daughter.  
Four very debilitating and life changing kinds of mental illness, Kim had somehow managed to avoid despite all the pressures life threw at her.  
She was not angry and resentful towards her family like Shego, or hungry for attention and validation like Drakken.  
Her self esteem had also never wavered despite life's best efforts to bring her down.

It was as she finished reading that the next patient, a short and frowning girl was pushed into the room on a trolley that Ann made a wish to kind fate.  
Not that Kim would be able to stop going on missions following an end to all crime. That would be asking too much.

But she did wish that Shego and Drakken, two very ill and mistreated people who did not know how badly they needed medical attention would one day pay a visit to the hospital so that Ann could have a proper conversation talking with them.


	7. Surprise!

"Kim's still not come back." exclaimed James worriedly that evening, very nearly banging his fist on the table. "She was supposed to be back hours ago but still no sign of her."

Unable to find the right words to reply her clearly very tense husband with immediately, Ann continued to place another mouthful of stew into her mouth struggling not to choke on it as she nervously chewed the vegetables.  
He was right to be anxious, she knew that. But this also wasn't the first time Kim had not returned at the promised time she had given to her parents when she left the house. It was a bit too early to jump to any assumptions, since some of the missions were bound to be more difficult than others.

"Don't worry yourself about it Dad." Tim said, looking at the very pale man with sympathetic eyes. "Sis is probably just taking her time with whatever it is she's gone to do this time. You're being too worried."

His attempt to soothe his father did not work however, as James continued to grow paler and paler before his family's very eyes until he appeared like a ghost dressed in the clothes of his former life.  
"No Tim, something's clearly very wrong. Kim doesn't joke about these kinds of things. She would never just make a promise she knew she couldn't keep. Kim takes her schedules very seriously."

He stood up and took a brief glance out the window. "Something's happened to her." he said eventually, his voice barely louder than a whisper "I know it has."

"She's been gone a couple hours dad. How bad could it really be? You're too jumpy for your own good dad." Jim chided, having finally realized that this conversation wouldn't be coming to an end any time soon. His dinner could wait, especially since he took little interest in the plate of green stuff that was to be his only meal for this evening. He had no fondness for the large stack of cauliflower and carrots that his mom had placed beside him saying it was good for his health.

Ann immediately gave the boy a sharp glance to show he was not helping, and he quickly took the hint to stop speaking. But it was too late, the damage had been done.

"No." James replied sadly. "No. Something's not right here. Kim doesn't just leave for this long without telling us. She said this mission would be quick and easy. No."

He turned to his wife, who had so far listened in silence afraid to speak lest her opinion make the mood worse.  
"Go give Kim a call. If she doesn't answer then something is wrong. Do it now."

Having sat relatively still throughout this whole ordeal, Ann treated the rocket scientist's words like gospel as she sprang into action to make a grab for her phone which had been placed on the kitchen counter to charge.  
Dialing the buttons as if she had done nothing but dial buttons her whole life long, Ann quickly typed in her daughter's number for her special phone. She put a finger to her lips to tell everyone to stay silent as beep after beep came through the phone.  
Not loud and clear beeps either, but quiet and shaky ones filled with static. Wherever the phone her daughter carried around with her was right now clearly didn't have very good signal at all. Very bad signal at that, since the "Kimmunicator" which was what Kim called that one of kind communicator device was designed to have excellent connectivity in a variety of environments when normal phones would simply have no signal at all.  
It was important after all for the world saving heroine to be well informed of any changes and to be able to contact her assistant Wade and her loved ones at a moment's notice.

"The number you have dialed is not available. Please leave your message after the tone." Came a wheezy, cracked mocking tone from the other end of the phone, also choked with static so that it was barely possible to make out the words. "KKKSSSHHHH" came the long and unending ear grating sound of garbled static cracks after one last beep.

Though it was Ann who held the phone, James was the first to react as he closed his eyes as if in deep reflection.

"Something's wrong." he declared almost immediately after the announcement went silent. "I can feel it."

If her daughter had been anyone other than Kimberly Anne Possible, Ann would quickly have replied that it had only been a few hours like her sons said, and that they should have waited at least a little longer before getting this worried over nothing.  
But Kim wasn't that kind of person. Kim never left home without keeping that special phone of hers fully charged and she would not only pick up the phone the first time it rang, but always within the first few beeps to show that she was still safe.  
It wasn't in her habit to let even a single call go unanswered, else how else would she be able to respond to the many that needed her help.

Kim wasn't the kind of girl just to casually not answer the phone.  
She certainly wasn't the kind to go back on a promise she had given to her family and friends. Villains and bullies did that, and any sane and sensible person could easily tell that Kim was trying not to be a villain. And when she promised she'd always follow the curfews her family set for her, you could bet she'd be back at least 2 entire minutes before the appointed time though hell should bar the way.

"You're right James" Ann replied, beginning to sound as frightened as her husband. "It's not like our Kimberly to just miss her calls like that. But first, let's try ringing one more time just to be safe."

She dialed the number one more time, eyes half closed praying to fate for any kind of answer but the one she got before.

She might well have been praying for her daughter to be thrown off a cliff for all the good it did, for the answer was word for word the same. The number was not available and to try again later, the only difference being that the static was even louder than before.

"Call global justice" ordered James, still stood up with a white face. "Tell them our Kimberly's gone missing and that they need to go look for her. Do it now."

Jim and Tim were muttering to one another, too quietly for Ann to make out any of what they were saying. She could tell though that they were just as scared as James now.

The number for the world renowned organization Kimberly had many connections to was as quickly dialed as the number for Kimberly had been, except perhaps faster due to the rush of adrenaline surging through the female surgeon's sweating body. Struggling to keep her voice clear and calm, Kim's mother relayed the few details of the mission that Kim had gone on which she had been told about, not even taking the time for a hello. She wanted to get to the point and it was getting harder and harder to speak as her head began to hurt.

"She mentioned it was somewhere in Alaska and that she was chasing some sort of gang who had a hideout there" Ann managed between puffs to say. "Not Shego. Not Drakken but someone else she had never seen before. Do you know anything?"

James and his twin sons could only guess what was being spoken from the other end of the line from Ann's reaction.

"She's not answered the call we gave her, and she's not come back for several hours despite saying she'd be back long ago. We're worried about her."

A few more words from the person at the other end of the phone, too quiet for anyone but the mother holding the phone to her ear to discern.

"Yes please. Send a search party out to find her, and bring her back as quickly as possible. We've tried calling twice with no response, and as you know Kimberly doesn't just not answer her calls like that. I know it's a bit early, but it's better to be safe."

Another few words from whoever was talking on the other end. It certainly wasn't Betty Director the leader of global justice, since everyone could clearly tell it was a man's voice from how deep it sounded.

"Thanks. We appreciate it. Have a good evening and call me if you find her." and then she rang off.

"So what now mom?" asked Jim, salvaging a touch of composure.

"Yeah." added Tim, the frown on his usually cheerful face a testament to how real the fears in his mind really were.

Ann took a few seconds to look through the three people who were anxiously awaiting her reply.  
She really couldn't think of much herself to say about the flood of emotions and thoughts racing through her mind right now. And to be quite frank, she knew sharing her thoughts right now could well be dangerous since some of them were not pleasant things two very young boys not yet in high school should be forced to listen to knowing the mental scars it would leave.

"Now." she slowly said, choosing every word with as much caution as she could exercise. "Now... we wait."

And her three family members turned to one another as they tried to salvage the little comfort that discomforting statement could provide.

 **And here's another chapter. So what do you think so far? Love it, hate it. Please do comment if you wish to help me out as this story does take a lot of effort. I would now like to hear your opinions. What do you think will become of the Possible family now after this unfortunate turn of events? Do you think things can ever stay the same if it does turn out something terrible has befallen Kim?  
I would like to hear your opinions in the comments below. So thank you for reading and please comment. I will see you all next time. **


	8. Casualty!

It was as the Possible family said goodnight to one another as they worriedly left the table one by one to retire for the evening, that a tall figure clad in a dark outfit cautiously crept through dark and deserted alleys of the usually bustling and upbeat streets of Middleton city.

She walked fast, hunted by her fears as she counted the number of minutes dividing her and her destination which she was eager to reach as quickly as possible before the stupid meddling red haired brat came once again to ruin her beautiful plan.  
But even if the annoying Kim did come the figure thought gleefully to herself, she'd still be under the cover of darkness. A cover that only a super heroine hardened by years of near impossible battles like Shego had truly mastered.

Just about every citizen in Middleton happily rejoiced in the very existence of the prodigy known to the probably the entire known world as the Kim Possible. Not the case for the dark haired woman who was now darting from alley to alley in search of that huge diamond which the Middleton bumpkins had been stupid enough to store in the main exhibit of a big museum.  
Artists drew comics and authors made stories to embellish the heroic feats of Kimberly "Kim" Ann Possible, each one more exaggerated and over the top than the last so that by the sixth edition of the comic series, Kim had been written to secretly possess superpowers and to have actually been born from a long line of other even more powerful demigods.  
A long line of half human half gods beings with unimaginable powers too mighty to be described which ended with our Kim Possible.

"The only one with any supernatural powers around this block, is me." sneered Shego sarcastically when she saw the line of children and adults alike pushing to get into the comic shops. "And soon I'll be using those to fry little Kimmie and her stupid friend to crisps." she said as she briefly glowed green plasma on her hands to make her point to no one in particular.

But knowing just how stupid the family of Kim's was to give her such strict curfews, Shego guessed that by this time of the night that her sworn enemy was sound asleep in bed sucking her thumb or at least in the shower taking a long comfortable wash not knowing that Shego was already in the process of enacting another evil scheme.  
An evil scheme which was bound to Kim, and by extension her stupid sidekick Ronald so mad when they found out they were too late this time.  
Shego very nearly laughed out loud when she thought of the look on their horrified feelings.

"I love being evil" sighed Shego happily as she sprinted a few more steps to finally reach the back wall of the museum.  
As she had expected, the museum had not bothered to put guards on this side of their cheaply run establishment so no one noticed a thing as Shego fished out two climbing spikes from the small and light rucksack she had brought with her on this heist and began to climb.

For any normal unskilled man or woman this task would have taken perhaps all night and then some, but the years of being a hero and survivor of many battles for justice which Shego preferred not to reflect on had made this woman very agile and light on both her hands and feet.  
One could scarce tell the difference between her and a monkey that had been granted the web throwing powers of spiderman, as she scaled the stony edifice quickly and efficiently, not even needing to pause for breath when she reached the top.

It was here that things began to fall apart.

Being so overconfident in her abilities had made Shego cocky and combined with the snarky glee of the huge sense of satisfaction of a plan gone well meant that Shego had misjudged her step slightly when she put a foot onto the thin top of the wall where she could briefly stand before carefully and safely drop onto the ground below.  
Not helping matters was how the rainstorm early this morning had made the surface very very slippery.

Shego had been busy engrossed in a thought about her rival Kim going red in the face and stamping the ground with smoke coming out of her ears shouting "I'll get you Shego", when all of sudden the slippage occurred.  
She slipped out of her stupor quickly enough to realize she was going to hit the ground hard. And by that time it was already too late to even try to scream let alone try to lessen the impact of the fall. For most less prepared anyone.

The former heroine's quick reflexes meant she registered the grim situation she had quickly found herself in quickly enough to let out a shrill, blood curdling howl as the ground came quickly at her like the Hollywood tower elevator ride at a fairground when it was speeding down at the ground in an attempt to scare the riders out of their pants.  
Except that those riders had safety bars. Shego unfortunately did not.

A brief image of Kim and Ron singing and dancing over her bloodied and mangled corpse quickly flashed up before her eyes, which she would later say to herself was nothing more than a panic induced hallucination caused by her uncharacteristically overreacting.  
Then the world quickly went black as she fell headfirst into the tough gravel paved ground of the museum garden.

First her head and then quickly her chest seized up with pain as Shego wished for death to come as quickly as it could and throw her into the deepest and hottest pit of the underworld where her and other notable villains deserved to be.  
A brief ringing in her ears as a blurry image of something she could make no guess to came through the darkness which had just engulfed her vision.

Then void and a feeling of not feeling anything.

It was still dark outside when Ann was woken by the sound of loud ringing.  
Still groggy and weary from a very uneasy night spent worrying about just what her daughter had gotten into this time, she managed eventually to grab the phone with a fumbling hand.

She was still stifling loud yawns as the doctor on the other end of the phone explained the late night emergency that had just taken place involving a severe casualty at the museum. A guard who had wandered outside for some fresh air had seen the badly injured would-be robber and quickly dialled for emergency services.

It was when the doctor began to describe the casualty's long and smooth black hair and bizarre green outfit that the tiredness that had come over the only just woken up Ann left as quickly as it had come, and the neurosurgeon's heart slammed.

"Don't worry though Dr Possible. We have a skilled and extensive team of doctors already working on the patient.  
The patient for the moment has been labelled as "fairly stable" and has a good chance of survival despite the severe trauma to the skull and chest. There is no need for you to come over, we are already taking care of everything and simply wished to keep you updated. Sorry and goodnight and we will see you tomorrow Dr Possible."

Dr Possible had not the strength for a goodbye as she slowly hung up the phone.

A flood of emotions too complex to describe surged through her aching head.

She shuddered slightly as she lay back into bed next to her husband James who being the heavy sleeper he was, had remained deep in sleep throughout this whole ordeal.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day.


	9. It's finally time we spoke

Shego woke with a gigantic headache and a loud ringing still in her ears.  
It felt warm compared to the cold she had been exposed to earlier, trying to take advantage of the cover of darkness when everything backfired.  
She had no idea how she had ended up lying on what felt like a surprisingly comfortable surface of some sort of bed.  
Voices flooded her hearing though they were cracked and difficult to make out on account of the strong pain mostly from her head but also her chest.  
The world seemed to spin round and round as the former heroine tried to keep her eyes open without success.  
Then darkness once again as her strength failed her and she drifted back into the bliss of oblivion.

The next time Shego slipped into consciousness, she stayed awake long enough to see what she thought were a group of what she could only assume were doctors or scientists of some sort from the outfits and masks they had on. But who really knew. She still couldn't quite make out what they were saying though and her vision faded once again far too quickly to really register much.

It was only on the third attempt that finally with great force of will that the dark haired woman managed to finally restrain herself from slipping off the slippery scope of staying awake. Every bit of her remaining strength was needed to keep her heavy eyelids from snapping shut once more as they had already done twice when she tried this.

From where she now lay unable to move much on account of the general feeling of weakness and fatigue still present in her, Shego could see that the bed she was lying on was a hospital bed and that she had been hooked up with a multitude of tubes to some sort of very large machine whose complexity would drive even "mad genius" Drew Lipsky to awe. The pillows, duvet as well as much of the decor of the room down to the walls and ceiling was pure white. The colour of purity and innocence, Shego sarcastically thought.

The memories of the last night began to come back all too clearly as Shego slowly began to realise from a nearby window that it was already light outside and thus must already be morning. She had slipped and hit her head on hard stone. And that must have been why she was here linked up to all these machines.  
Her head still hurt and it took all her strength to prevent herself from drifting away back into the oblivion she had grown to detest.

Even despite the blurriness still present in her vision, she could see that there were several beds like hers in the room and each one was filled with another patient, all of them probably still deep in sleep from whatever horrible accidents had befallen them.  
It was as she heard quick and desperate footsteps and she saw what she could only assume to be a doctor rush into the room through a nearby doorway that the dizziness became too much and everything went pitch black once again much to Shego's chagrin.  
How long would she have to be here unable to do the villainous things a villain was supposed to be doing, she shuddered to think.

And so this went on and on. Darkness followed by a brief moment of alertness and blurry sight before darkness returned.  
Occasionally Shego would hear the doctors who were usually by her bedside say something she couldn't properly discern. Her mind was clouded and confounded for Shego to really think much but the one thing she did wryly remark silently to herself was that her sworn enemy Kim was probably having the time of her life with her out of the picture and trapped on this bed badly injured with more tubes than she could count linked up to her.

Though this time it didn't seem like she would fall back to sleep, since even when she closed her eyes once more she felt far too tense and alert to drift off. This was just great since now she was stuck having to kill time in this dump of a place with nothing to do but stare at other injured patients and the various machines around this room.

With nothing else to do, she tried hitting the button conveniently placed by her bed. Shego was hungry now and she figured if she was really going to spend the next however many tedious weeks stuck here she might as well be comfortable about it.  
The first few attempts were met only with silence and futility. The third attempt went very differently to what she had expected.

Instead of her request for attention being attended to, a pair of eyes merely peered in through a small gap in the door leading to this room.  
Shego waited for whoever that was to notice her, but instead after a few brief seconds the pair of eyes vanished once more.

A pair of footsteps thudded gently across the room outside. Then voices came.  
"I was beginning to think she wouldn't make it." a voice sounded, more relieved and happy than menacing even if Shego couldn't see who it was.

"That's good." another different sounding voice replied, equally as pleased. "Get Ann. She'll be happy to hear that."

Footsteps once more, only this time they seemed to get fainter and fainter with each step.  
Shego continued to stare anxiously at the doorway trembling slightly until the sound had died away. This Ann was certainly very interested in her, though Shego shuddered to think what that meant. She had never liked the hospital much, even in her hero days back in team Go with her brothers.  
The boring long wait in the waiting room being forced to read through magazines so mind numbing she'd rather be doing anything else, the notion of having to undress just so the doctor or surgeon or whatever could see where her injuries were causing her pain. None of those brought back pleasant memories, and that was saying a lot considering Shego hated just about all of her past recollections before she found Doctor Drakken. 

If this Ann thought they were going to start up a nice conversation with Shego, they were dead wrong. Shego had made a mental note ever since she changed her ways not to talk to anyone except to browbeat them into doing exactly what she wanted or to mock them and make fun at their expense.  
It was the way for evil people to talk, and Shego had very definitely made up her mind that from the day she left home to be as evil as she possibly could.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, the footsteps that Shego had grown a great distaste to hearing since she got here came back.

Shego screwed up her face as she drummed her fingers waiting for whatever monotonous and dull conversation not worth her attention to come.

It came as a shock to her therefore, when the door eventually opened to reveal a very attractive and young woman that even Shego could not help but stare at for a few seconds transfixed by the metaphysical beauty which seemed to hold the injured villain's eyes in place.  
This had to be Ann was the only thing Shego could bring herself to think as her mind seemed to blow apart and her brain seemed to cease to function.  
Shining blue eyes like crystals and a concerned yet very innocent expression regarded Shego, reminding her of a time when her parents were still alive and when she was still naive enough to believe that everything would be alright as long as her two biggest heroes read her a bedtime story and tucked her into bed after she had returned from preschool in tears after a long hard day of teasing.

A time when no one made fun of her for her oddly coloured green skin, and when her spoiled brothers kept to themselves and for the most part were at least tolerable.  
When good and evil really didn't matter to the bubbly and mild tempered little girl who'd trade anything now to have the two responsible grown ups who she never had the chance to properly thank back in her life again.

Shego didn't even care that this woman's beautifully arranged hair was auburn red reminding her a little too much of her sworn life enemy Kim.  
But then a lot of people shared the same hair colour and Shego could let that go for the sake of this beautiful woman who seemed far too attractive to be just another bland and uninteresting doctor. She was sure the villain community wouldn't mind slightly if she had just a little talk with this one single do-gooder.

"Are you Ann?" was the only thing Shego could think to say however, as the female doctor's unearthly charmed had brought the green skinned woman into a stupor of confusion and reminiscing. Reminiscing over the long gone parents she had lost far too soon, far too unfairly.

"Ann, or Dr Possible. Either is fine." was the polite and upbeat reply to Shego's bizarre question, spoken in a voice that seemed too good to be real.

But that did nothing to disguise the mention of the name Possible to the now incredibly depressed and torn up Shego who would gladly have given this liar a blast of plasma to the face were she not feeling so weak and dizzy at this moment.  
She knew everything was too good to be true as she very nearly cried.  
It didn't matter that this woman seemed so trustworthy and innocent, she was a Possible and a blood relative of her arch enemy.

"Go away" Shego hissed in a cold and icy rage. "Don't talk to me."

 **Boy this chapter sure took a while. But here is when I would like to share some of my personal thoughts as an author, as irrelevant and pointless to you as they may be. I feel a lot of characters in a lot of good shows are underused. Batgirl for instance is not used nearly enough in the Batman show. I feel that such characters actually have a lot more potential and power than they let on and are only written badly in the episodes they do appear in to make the main character look better in comparison so they don't end up upstaging the main character. This I find to be a great mistake and a great chance missed. While a lot of people want a show just about Shego as she goes from villain to villain doing evil things, I instead would like a show about Dr Ann and how she goes around helping her patients recover and helping her family out with their problems. Not just villain problems like the episode Mother's day ( I'm sure most of you haven't seen that episode) but life problems like say if Kim felt down about her schoolwork or relationships with Ron or her other friends. As we've seen from a lot of episodes, the rest of Kim's family have a lot more hidden talent that they don't let on and which could have easily kept the show going for at least a few more episodes. But that's just my opinion.**


	10. Recovery, mending bridges

The friendly faced doctor was very clearly taken aback by Shego's sudden rage, noticeably shaking before the still very injured Shego.  
Shego argued with herself for not realising right away that the doctor's auburn hair was a dead giveaway that as gentle and trustworthy looking as she was, to Shego she was just another low tier enemy who deserved none of her sympathy.

The same way Kim's annoying younger brothers, her female friend Monique who Kim was very close with and even that very cool wheelchair bound boy who even Shego found strangely difficult to detest due to his handicaps deserved nothing but her scorn.  
Her scorn and hatred. Them coming up to her in this weak state because they were concerned for her and to ask for her forgiveness, changed nothing.  
She was a villain on the side of evil now. And it was beyond dishonourable for villains to accept any form of pity from a non villain, however kindly it was offered.

But the fit was only momentary and much to Shego's amazement, the red haired woman known as "Ann" did not leave the room.  
Instead the worried expression in the surgeon's shining blue eyes only seemed to grow by the second as she sadly hung her head as if politely trying to show she understood what Shego was trying to imply.

"I'm sorry you feel that way Shego." Ann sadly stated, taking a few steps closer to Shego's bedside but still keeping her distance. "I just wanted to see if you were alright. I..."

"I'm fine. No thanks to you. Leave me alone." exclaimed Shego, cutting her enemy off mid sentence. She needed to show Kim's mother who she thought she recognised from not too long ago, that she would take nothing from the family of her sworn opponent.

"I know you're upset with me Shego, and I understand why. But please, I just want to talk to you. I want to help you."

Such a beautiful and radiant voice so calm. If "Ann" was really trying to sound convincing and kind to Shego, she was certainly doing a very good job of it.

"I don't need your help." Shego spat, getting more and more impatient by the second. She wished she wasn't so injured and her head and back weren't so sore so that she could see how Kim's mother reacted to a beam of super heated plasma planted at her feet.  
That would hammer home the point that they weren't friends and never would be. Being too injured to move but a few muscles in her aching body was bad enough but having one of her worst enemies standing by her bedside taunting her with fake kindness, that would be unbearable.  
Shego would rather have anything but that. "In fact, why don't you just let me out of this room so I can get out of here and get back to work. I'm a busy woman you know and Dr D's bound to need me for a lot of things you aren't letting me do right now."

"I'm sorry Shego. The doctors said you need to spend at least a week in this bed before you can leave. That fall messed you up pretty bad and it took several hours to put you back together. I'm really sorry." was the concerned yet calm reply.

A week. A whole week? Seven days of being trapped in this bed doing nothing?  
At least the tubes from earlier had been disconnected. But that hardly helped matters when this meant seven days of being forced to be around Kim's goody two shoes parent who was probably masking years upon years of hatred and grudges beneath that polite facade she was now putting on.

"It's good to see you're getting better Shego. I need to go now but I'll come back and talk to you later. Rest and save your energy." Ann continued as the red haired woman left the room and very gently shut the door behind her.

Good riddance, thought Shego. She didn't need that crazed woman's pity. Did Kim's mom who Kim always spoke so highly off for some reason not realise how often her daughter and her fought each other in fierce hatred driven bouts. Or that Kim herself had once admitted that she hated Shego more than anyone else before pushing her off a several story building with the intent to finally kill the green skinned super-powered criminal who had been a pain in the redhead's miserable and unhappy existence for far too long back when they fought during the Eric incident.  
And yet Kim's thick headed mother didn't harbour the slightest grudge against Shego even though she'd caused Kim enough pain to make her snap and straight up want to murder Shego...

This didn't seem right, there had to be some ulterior motive.

The hours crawled by like years as Shego continued to while away the time staring into an otherwise very still and uneventful room.  
One by one the other patients were carried away into another room, the doctors carrying them away paying no attention to Shego as they rushed into the room and quickly back out until there was just one patient wrapped from head to toe in bandages in the bed at the far corner of the room.

Not that Shego wanted anything to do with any of those freaks anyway with how sick and injured some of them were, but she was getting so hungry by now.  
So engrossed was she in her anger for the one surgeon that had come to see her, that Shego had forgotten to ask for some small morsel that might dull the pains of having to wait away the hours with nothing to a sharp pain which only got more and more unbearable and difficult to ignore began to plague Shego's tummy. Worse than the time she had thrown up on Dr Drakken's plane when his poor piloting skill had them both rocked all over their cabin. Far, far worse and more torturing.

She swore that now it was taking all of her willpower to avoid biting her fingers which seemed to look more and more like grilled chicken pieces wrapped in breadcrumbs by the second. Saliva piled up in her dry and uncomfortable mouth far too quickly for her to simply swallow it down and ignore and her teeth seemed to grate uncontrollably as if her jawbones had developed a mind of their own.

It was therefore surprisingly difficult for Shego not to feel at least slightly pleased therefore when Ann returned just as she was beginning to have inclinations of sinking her teeth into her duvet. Shego took a deep breath as she readied herself to grovel and plead for forgiveness for the sake of some food, any food but before Shego could say a thing, she saw before her a tray containing what looked to be a hot bowl of red soup and a glass of water beside it.  
Whether Kim's mother was some sort of mind reader or just incredibly knowing of how to provide comfort to an impatient patient, Shego would never know.

"I would give you something better, but the other doctors say you can't eat solid foods until you've recovered a bit more." was the apologetic remark as Ann pushed the trolley containing the tray of foods closer. "I know you're hungry by now and I'm sorry you haven't had anything until now."

Shego began to reach for the spoon on the tray but found herself unable to move her arm more than a few inches without an incredible spasm of pain coursing through her body forcing her to put her arm back on the bed.

"Open your mouth Shego, and let me help you." offered Ann as she dipped the spoon into the bowl of sweet smelling tomato soup and brought it out again.

And in her desperate state where she felt she would soon bite her own tongue off, Shego was in no position to refuse as she opened her mouth to let the neurosurgeon place the spoonful of hot soup where it belonged.  
Indescribable sensations engulfed the hungry patient as the delightful taste of warmed soup trickled over her taste buds and she forgot that the person feeding her the soup was her third biggest adversary behind the ever unbearable pair that was Kim and Ron. Tears welled up in the female criminal's eyes as an image of her own mother feeding her the same simple yet satisfying dish of tomato soup and caressing the crying Shego gently as Shego had come home balling her eyes out after bullies several times larger than her had pushed her into a freezing and wet pile of winter snow, flashed before her eyes.  
Those were good times she had to admit as she anxiously swallowed the soup down her throat trying very hard not to choke in her sad state of being close to tears. Tears that were a mixture of bliss and of tragic wistfulness of good times long gone past.

"Th, thank you." Shego managed to stutter as she opened her mouth once more to let another spoonful of heated soup into her system.  
Each mouthful brought back a fraction of her sanity and the urge to bite at her tongue and fingers seemed to vanish as quickly as it came.

To Shego this was no longer a hospital bed in a disgusting sick house called the hospital. To her this was heaven. She died crashing her head on hard rock that night and she had been sent to heaven after some mistake whereby she had been mistaken for a hero due to once being part of the nasty team of losers that were her brothers.

To Shego the surgeon clad in a white lab coat feeding her spoonful after spoonful of this heavenly delicacy wasn't Kim's mother, only pretending to be Kim's mother because she was too modest to confess she was actually an angel.  
An angel that knew what Shego truly wanted beyond just being evil. Beyond just having nothing to do with her spoiled and arrogant excuses for siblings and going from employer to employer looking for freelance jobs out of a desire for the excitement she got when she did something bad and hurtful to others.  
How else would Dr Possible"Ann" know that she was hungry without her even having to say a word.

How else would Dr Possible know that tomato soup heated at the perfect temperature of mildly boiling was her most favoured dish.  
Or be so ready to sit here next to Shego smiling softly even after all the less than likeable things Shego had done and after all the pain Shego had caused to others in her time away from the side of law and order.

After she had shouted loud and clear that she hated Kim Possible and anyone Kim Possible considered an ally. After she had tried time and time again to make Kim's life miserable, to foil Kim's schemes of bringing justice into an unlawful world soiled with lawbreakers some even worse than Shego and her employer Drakken.

If "Doctor Possible" held the slightest hint of anger at Shego's misdeeds, Dr Possible certainly didn't show it.

"D, don't leave me." Shego whispered on instinct as she felt lovely warmth flowing through her knackered body, and her strength flooded back to her along with it. She expected only silence and to find that all this was only a dream.

She was surprised but in a pleasant way therefore when her caretaker continued to place another spoonful of soup into Shego's mouth as she gently touched the lightly sobbing Villain's cheeks very gently.

"I won't leave you Shego. I'll be here if you need me."


	11. Confessions

It was surprisingly upsetting for Shego to see Ann leave the room as she managed with the surgeon's help to finish the last bits of soup.  
She promised she'd be back as soon as she had no more work to do, though from the number of patients Shego had seen being pushed out of this room since she'd been watching she could tell that wasn't anytime in the near future.

Perhaps this week away from the excitement of villainy wouldn't be so bad after all.  
But something still felt wrong as Shego now with a full and comfortable stomach managed to fall into a fairly enjoyable state of rest.  
Why was the parent of her single biggest rival treating her with this amount of kindness and civility as if they had been nothing but good friends all their life?  
The one time Kim mother and her met, was so long ago now that the memory of it all had become hazy. Shego could probably have recalled any one of her days in team Go better than that day.  
She did remember well though that it was mother's day when for the first time she beheld the red haired surgeon who her employer Drakken had at first mistook for Kim's elder sister.

And had it not been mother's day, Shego would probably have made the same mistake astute as she usually was.  
There was nothing in Ann's graceful movements and modest expression that remotely suggested an older woman old enough to be parent to a teenage daughter and two young boys still too young for horror movies.  
Perhaps Hego her brother really was onto something when he claimed a truly noble parent like theirs never lost their natural charm no matter their age.  
Those were his exact words just weeks before it happened. It being a matter of seconds which pained his now lonely and fiercely independent younger sister to even think about let alone speak of.

Or maybe it was just because Ann was a doctor and doctor's were known for their above average lifespans over their less fortunate brethren. That would be far more plausible since Shego still didn't feel exactly at ease around a woman who would have made a prime target for her target practise just a few moments before her appetite had been appeased by that perfect soup whose aftertaste continued to pleasantly linger.  
It beat the cruddy junk food Drakken had in his lair since he was too lazy to learn to cook himself by a long, long shot.

In at least a few ways, Shego could see why Kim was so eager to suck up to her parents's expectations of her.  
If it meant eating this high standard of five star standard dining for breakfast, lunch and supper then even Shego was envious of the much better life that her rival led. From being more popular to having so many more fans grovelling before her in the city square and now being fortunate enough to enjoy warm and fresh soup. It was becoming increasingly difficult by the second for Shego to brag about her life being so much better than Kim's had been ever since she turned from the side of heroism and Kim did not.

Shego wasn't a hero and she would never be again. And if she wasn't feeling this weak right now, she'd be dashing back to her boss to plot her next devious scheme against Kim and the entire Possible household.

Her thoughts were interrupted by those footsteps in the corridor she had grown accustomed to hearing every now and again when not much was happening. Footsteps that signalled all too well that since she was the only patient left in this room on this pitch black night she had woken to after a surprisingly deep and uninterrupted sleep.

All too soon,the door was opened once again and as the lights to the room were flicked on there stood the bringer of hot soup and Shego guessed, her caretaker of sorts for the next days until she finally recovered enough strength to quit this accursed place they called "a sanctuary for the sick.".

"I'm back." Ann began the conversation with standing over Shego and gently stroking her hair tenderly.  
Shego wondered if Kim had ever told this crazy parent of hers that she could shoot burning plasma from her fingertips with little effort. Burning plasma hot enough to sear through even thick sheets of lead with ease leaving little more than molten slag in it's wake. But something about the way Ann's fingers ran made it much less threatening and Shego guessed she could take this for at least a bit.

"What do you want?" demanded Shego figuring that if she answered whatever stupid questions this redhead had then she could left alone in peace quicker.

"I just want to talk to you Shego. I've been wanting to talk to you for some time now. I want to ask you some things."

"If you've come to ask me to go back to Kim and tell her let's be friends. then no. I don't do superhero things anymore. I don't work for anybody. Just myself and possibly Dr D as long as he pays me well enough." Shego guessed whatever conversation they'd be having could only head down this direction and she wanted to stop the surgeon from even bringing it up.

"Please Shego, I know you're angry with me and you don't trust me." sighed Ann continuing to gently caress Shego's hair in a way that actually felt sort of calming. "But please, just hear me out this once."

Shego used her good arm to brush the soft and delicate hand still touching her long black hair away with one sharp movement. She could at least move some of her muscles now that she had been thoroughly rested.  
"You're lucky I'm in a good mood right now, or else I'd burn you to a crisp." she snarled softly but angrily. "If I were you, I'd leave and never come back. I don't want you here."

The next question which tumbled from the redhead's persistent wordhole though turned Shego's rage into defensiveness.

"Just let me ask you one thing Shego and I promise I'll go. What happened to you Shego? You used to be a much nicer person before you left your family. Did something go wrong?"

"How do you know any of that?" barked the very agitated Shego, a tad terrified at how the woman now facing her seemed to know everything that was going on in her mind. There was no way one of her worst enemies would know any of that crap which she kept hidden from everyone and even tried to keep it secret from herself as best she could by burying it deep inside her.

"Kimberly told me." was the more than calm and unafraid reply. "She met team Go once on one of her missions and she me all about how without you, they're not doing well. They told her to tell you if she ever got the chance, that they miss you Shego."

"Well too bad I don't miss them. Is that what you came here to ask me. Because if it is, we're done talking." Shego needed to get this loudmouth off her case as quickly as she could before Ann started using her attractive facade to start digging deeper into the secrets Shego could not have getting exposed to anyone, least of all the parent of her worst enemy who was sure to go blabbing to the world.

Anything was preferable to losing her secrets to this creep who talked too much.

Ann once again had clearly read Shego's mind down to the letter as she nodded sadly to show she understood the pain she was causing the incredibly flustered patient whose very complexion seemed to grow paler by the second like a ghost.  
"I can see that whatever happened to you Shego is still hurting you and I won't force you if you don't want to."

"Then stop wasting my time and leave me in peace and let me get some rest. It's already so late."

She expected that this would be the end of this futile talk that had gone on way too long. But Ann did not leave. Instead her voice became more melodious and the look in those big blue eyes only more difficult to resist.

"I want to help you Shego. I really do. But I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"I don't want your help. I don't need your help. All I need is for you to get out." Shego's patience was already wearing thin though the redhead's gleaming eyes and pleasant voice so calm in the face of her anger made it difficult for her to sound truly threatening anymore. It was as if Ann's voice was a siren drawing her closer and closer despite her fiercest resistances. Shego would a hundred times rather Ann shouted and screamed in anger instead.

"Let me ask you something different then ,Shego." Ann paused for a moment as if even she was unsure about her next words. "What's the worse thing you've ever done, in your own opinion?"

Of all the invasive and stupid questions Shego was expecting to be subjected to, she could never have guessed that this would be a question she'd have been asked in her life for any reason. Just how Ann was planning to get anything out of this much less offensive but much more puzzling and indirect inquiry, Shego hadn't the foggiest idea. Was she being played for a dummy now by a doctor who thought their degrees made them too smart to be beaten at their own mind games.

"What is this now, a confession?" asked Shego hoping to get the upper hand in this cross examination by cunning. "Well then. First tell me. What about you doctor. What have you done?"

The reply was much more shaky and slow to come this time and Shego briefly smirked at the thought of finally having backed the overly talkative redhead into a corner.

"I don't think you want to know that Shego." Ann warned grimly, taking a second to look away from her patient to steady her nerves. She had only told her husband James her story up until now and she was really hoping to wait until Kimberly had gotten at least a bit older and more mature before she was forced to repeat it a second time. It wasn't a light hearted story that helped with getting a good night's sleep. "It might be best you don't know."

Shego sensed Ann's inner turmoil and befitting her villainous nature quickly took to capitalising it with all her might.  
"Go on. Say it. Just what exactly did you do that's making you so shaky? Or are you too much of a pussy to spill the beans?" And Shego's smirk grew since this was bound to finally shut up this goody two shoes, who was no better than her daughter in any way.

Ann's tension eased up slightly as she took a deep breath and averted her eyes so that they met line to line with the green and narrow eyes of Shego.  
This was a good a time as any to finally reveal her truth that she had been hiding far too long anyway, and with that attitude it sounded like this was a story that would at least give Shego some entertainment if she was to be stuck lying on a bed for this long.

"I've waited a long time for someone to ask me this." she admitted "And in some ways, I'm glad it was you Shego who asked. You deserve the truth."

Ann took a brief second to steady herself. She needed all her strength if she was going to convince Shego that all this really was the truth and not just some fancy she made up on the spot.  
"It started when I was very young."


	12. Ann's past: Wasted youth

**Russia, 1984**

Our once proud and peaceful country had not seen good days since the fall of the last leader, the Tsar. All over the barren and icy landscape our people were starving and freezing to death as the few governors who hadn't lost their jobs battled to get negotiations and trades with the other countries back on track.  
To no avail of course since no one trusted us anymore.  
The world had cut itself away and left a once vibrant land full of culture and history to its own fate.  
Our country's involvement in a certain conflict long gone by which I'd really rather not delve into, only convinced the world that it would be best never to give us back any of our former glory or power even if a thousand years were to pass.  
And as the friendships between even Russia's remaining allies who still had some inkling of respect for the icy lands whose people's hearts were said to be as cold as the bleakest of winters continued to crumble, so too did the friendships between our country's very own people as they turned on each other for even the smallest reasons.  
Survival of the fittest and civil wars, I think my parents called it.

...

"Is this supposed to be a history lesson or something." murmured Shego, stifling back a large yawn. "Because if it is then it's not a very good one. Half of it doesn't even sound real. You're making this up as you go along aren't you?".  
Kim's mother didn't even remotely look like a Russian let alone sound like one.  
Despite being clearly a little upset to be interrupted during such an emotionally tough moment, Ann's voice was still soft and calm when she paused her narrative to address Shego's point.  
"Why would I lie to you Shego? I like you. I care about you. As long as you're here with me, I will treat you as I would my own family. And I don't lie to my family."

Shego opened her mouth to complain hotly once more but then decided to remain silent once more when she realised nothing she said would be able to break the surgeon's gentle demeanour. And if nothing else, her story certainly sounded better than most of the boring ones the other villains told around the fireplace in that it didn't make her want to doze off right away.

...

 **Russia 1985**

My family were never particularly well off. Things in our country like toys and food were very hard to come by. Day in and day out my daddy, my first daddy went from shop to shop trying to get a job with very little success. The only way he could sometimes make a few bits was by shovelling snow outside for the richer people in my town and most of the time they refused to even give him anything. A lot of the time, he was reduced to begging for food outside cafe's and other food places for any scraps they could afford to give him and mum and me. Sometimes he got a few leftovers which no one else wanted, and sometimes the doorman shooed him away and told him to never come back.

My mum was never very well off either. She always had this cough which never seemed to go away. And if what she told my dad and me was true then she had always had that painful painful cough ever since she was a little girl.  
Though somehow I didn't have a cough. Somehow even when winter came and it got even colder than usual and we couldn't afford fire or medicine for the little flat we lived in I never got seriously ill. My mum always told me that this had to have a meaning. That I was clearly chosen for great things beyond that what I could imagine.  
That one day I'd quit this dirty and rotten excuse for a place to live for somewhere far greater than even my wildest dreams could take me.

And even though my parents were lovely people who never put their needs above my own, I found what they said very hard to believe.  
They were clearly just trying to give me hope which I would never have. Just trying to sugarcoat a mouldy and stale piece of hard bread, so to speak.

My parents and I lived happily together for a long time despite the harsh conditions we had been forced into. Long enough anyway for me to feel the warmth and safety of being surrounded by two beacons of light in a world full of darkness. But before I even knew them well, in front of my eyes they disappeared.

 _..._

"Disappeared?" asked Shego as Ann stopped for a brief moment to regain her composure. It was clear this wasn't an experience she wasn't comfortable with sharing with anyone and that had at least made Shego somewhat empathetic of the deep sorrow that the one doctor who had treated her well was now sinking into slowly.  
A quiet and barely audible sniff escaped the female surgeon.

"Yes Shego. Disappeared"

...

 **Russia 1985**  
The winter of 1985 just before my fifth birthday was even worse than last year's. You could say that hell was freezing over.

Now for a lot of people, winter is thought of as a fun event filled with enjoyment and pleasure that only comes once a year for four months, five if you count march as well.  
After all what could be more fun sliding around on the beautiful white landscape called snow, making those lovely things called snowmen or snow angels.  
Children especially young kids have lots and lots of fun throwing snowballs at each other in what's called a snowball fight.  
And after all those games are over and its time to head home there's always hot chocolate to warm you up after your icy adventure and a cosy fire to sit beside if you still haven't warmed up. All of these being things you could never do during summer or any other time of the year.

Don't get me started on the fact that there's a scrumptious roasted bird called a Turkey covered with the most delicious sauces you could care to name. The thought of that alongside the roasted potatoes, stuffing, the little veggies like sprouts on the side. Just thinking about it makes me hungry.

But for some reason neither I or my mum and dad found winter particularly enjoyable. And even now I don't find it very enjoyable.  
Sleeping on the floor without much of a duvet wasn't too bad in the summer. Try the same thing in winter and you wouldn't even need me to explain myself any further.

Then it happened. My dad was a strong and big man but with how long he spent outside everyday trying to shovel snow and find enough to keep us all from starving, it was no wonder that the nasty runny nose and sneezing that he had been doing his best to hide came back to bite him hard.  
Without much of a doctor in our part of town and with the other doctor uptown charging what for us amounted to highway robbery, it wasn't long before one morning we found him huddled up in his spot on the floor, his face turned towards the wall as if he didn't want to see anyone.  
We turned him around and tried to shake him but he didn't respond. Me and mum both knew what that meant.

Without daddy's help, there wasn't any money coming into the cup on the table. Mum wasn't strong enough to go outside in that weather with her cough that never seemed to go away and she wouldn't let me go either.  
We simply stayed inside the safety of our shelter that was apartment number 47 of Kalashnikov Kresent, to try and ride out the wrath of that harsh and unrelenting winter.

They say that when someone you know and care about is lost, a part of you is lost with them. If my time spent studying human emotions and their effects on the brain are to be believed then every loved one you lose also takes away some of your life expectancy depending on just how much they mattered to you.  
According to the test I took sometime ago, that would mean that every member of your immediate family took away roughly three years of life in the case that they passed away before you did.  
The penalty would be doubled if you lost them sometime between the ages of three and ten, when you had been acquainted with them well enough to idolise and cherish them but when the mind was far too weak to cope with the severe trauma of a topic as serious as death.  
It was tripled bringing the total penalty to nine years, if one had neither another understanding family member nor trusted friend to turn to for reassurance following the sudden loss of safety following the death or departure of the loved one in question.

Did that mean I had already lost eighteen precious years when a few weeks later my mum left the room we shared as a family while I was still sleeping?  
My mum had clearly not taken the loss well and for the past few weeks had refused to talk to me. Her usually optimistic mood was no more and all I could do was leave her be hoping it would pass and that she'd feel better soon.  
I never learned of what happened to mum. And somehow for me, that was better. Not being anywhere as hardy as dad and having a never ending tendency to throw coughing fits meant she probably couldn't have gone far.  
But at that moment in time as I, not yet six years old looked at the empty spot where mum was supposed to be and quickly began punching the door with all my might which wasn't very much then. Mum had locked the door behind her and it was a long time before the door as paper thin and decayed as it was, eventually gave way to my temper tantrum of wailing and constant kicking.

I ran through the streets as snow flew into my eyes, not needing to change since I always slept with my clothes on anyway for warmth.  
But my mum had been right to warn me not to try to take even one step outside no matter what. It was far too cold for me to run very quickly and the constantly swirling snowflakes blurred my vision making it almost impossible for me to see anything.

I didn't know where I was when I started shouting for help as my frail and hungry body could take no more. I slipped on a step which in my confusion I didn't spot and fell face first into more snow. I tried to pull myself back up so that I could find someone, anyone to save me. Save me from this shivering which was getting weaker and weaker as I saw nothing but white and then black.

But I knew it was useless. I should have listened to mum and not gone against my better instincts which deserted me when I saw my one remaining hero no longer curled up beside me. It was the end of the line. I only hoped that soon I would stop shivering entirely and it would all end a lot faster.

...

Shego didn't really even know how she was supposed to feel anymore. So Ann was ready to tell her daughter's worst enemy about all this. Even after all the scrapes she and Kim had been through. Even though it was apparent that sympathy or even admiration for her plight were two things Shego neither wished nor cared to grant. Why not a psychologist or anyone else to hear the apparently tragic tale of "Ann the abused".

"I must not cry" Shego murmured in her mind.

...

 **Russia 1985**

I woke to the heavenly sensation of warmth. Was I in heaven?  
As my sight cleared and my senses slowly returned I heard a voice. I couldn't hear what it said but it sounded trustworthy and friendly.

And then I saw a great white throne, and him who was seated on it.

A gently smiling and slightly trembling man with hair as white as the snow outside, dressed in what were clearly expensive yet modest clothes.  
The way he looked at me as he explained that he had brought me here to safety as he caught me freezing to death out in the cold.  
I was lucky he happened to be driving to the store to pick up some essential groceries and driving back again.

"You are safe here" he reassured as he continued to elaborate on how he had built this humble establishment as an orphanage to try and help as many poor young children like me. Children whose parents like mine had also succumbed to the icy curse ravaging through this now very poor country.  
Children whose parents had starved, frozen or worked their fingers too hard in the few barely functioning factories still left until their hands really did fall off.

What he said to me next, I had forgotten as the thought of a warm and well made bed like the one the old gentleman had laid me in and the company of other children to play with and talk to had made my memory and mind weak.  
Maybe we had all been born into a very bad and unfortunate set of circumstances or "dealt a bad hand" as people here prefer to call it, but if we had each other and the help of truly selfless benefactors like the man who'd brought me to this blessed place then maybe our lives might not be so bad after all.

But most of all maybe I could satisfy daddy's last wish which he all but repeated again and again to me even on his deathbed ill and weak.  
A firm prediction that his untimely demise only made me want more determined than ever to satisfy if only to put daddy at ease wherever he was now.

A prediction that his little Anna I, was chosen for great things. Great things he claimed that were important enough to forever change the way of the unfair and crooked world long after his passing.  
"The odds are in your favour Anna", were his last words that tragic night as sleep overtook him before I could ask daddy what he meant.  
The first confusing words that come to mind when I think back to the uneducated but very clever and wise man who I'll never see again except in my dreams.

...

Even accepting everything Ann had told her to be a hundred percent true with no fabrications whatsoever which was highly unlikely, Shego still failed to see what was making Kim's melodramatic drama queen mother so sentimental or emotional.  
At least Ann had good friends the same age and position as herself while not one of Shego's brothers had been even remotely civil or loving towards her since her own mom and dad passed away.  
And if whatever life Kim's mum had led ended the redhead up as a successful and respected neurosurgeon, whose very presence saved the lives of at least a dozen innocent and completely helpless casualties every day rather than say another apathetic criminal like Shego, then surely there was nothing too terrible in her past.  
Nothing terrible enough to warrant sympathy anyway from Shego who still believed her own childhood to be far worse and deserving of understanding.

Little did "Shego" know that by the end of the night when Ann left her, she would long have began lambasting and mocking herself for this very opinion.

...

 **"The punch of 87" Russia 1987**

The old saying that pride went before a fall had never been presented in a more sadistic way than the days following my close escape from death's door.  
As soon as I was well enough to sit up and move again thanks to hot and tender soup being poured down my aching throat, I eagerly followed the old gentleman outside to meet the other boys and girls who he claimed I was sure to get along swimmingly well with.

The look that the others gave to me the moment I entered the playroom, was beyond unfriendly. It was somehow inhuman as if I had committed some horrible crime long before I stepped into the room.  
My savoir introduced the other children briefly to their new friend and told us not to cause trouble and to be on our best behavior.

I don't think I need to explain what happened next. And to be honest Shego, it might be best if even you didn't know.  
It's, it's not a pleasant subject. It really isn't.

Suffice to say, not every bully needs a good reason to bully someone. They told me things and called me names. Very mean names.  
And the grown ups around the place where I was lucky enough to have a home in now were none the wiser since they spent most of the day away at work to provide for us.

So one day after how long I had forgotten of all this, one day I lost it all.  
In the worst way possible.

Once again the apparent ringleader of the other children since he was much larger and more muscular than even his six almost as bad friends, came up to me saying my hair was stupid and how if I didn't hand over my bag of sweets for the day that I would regret it.  
That bag of sweets was my birthday present from the kind man who'd brought me to be looked after. They were my favourite kind too, mostly lemon drops with a few black humbugs. They were special. And I had been looking forward to them all that day before someone had informed the ringleader of my sudden stash.

One more insult about how daddy never loved me and my life was never the same.  
It was over. All over.  
Any chance I had of being the good girl like I promised mum and dad, all gone.

When I lost my temper and in a moment of complete stupidity, gave the large boy a strong and heavy punch.

The only thing in my mind in those five seconds which even now I can never forgive myself for, was to show the monsters who had been annoying me far too long what happened to those unfortunate enough to receive my rage.

A huge puddle of blood flowed from the now very frightened boy's nose like he had just become a fountain that pumped out blood instead of water.

He held his nose and slowly backed away as without meaning to, I looked him straight in the eye.  
His friends and the other children who were probably just as scared of him and his gang of bigger and stronger children as I was, quickly backed away from me as well.

It was when somehow as hard as I tried to apologise and could say nothing, that I realised that the other children weren't monsters.

I was the only monster.

I could have handed over my sweets but all for the sake of satisfying my stupid rush of emotions, I lost control over myself.

My legs froze to jelly when I tried to steer myself in the direction of the crowd so I could say I didn't mean for it to happen. So that I could grovel before the owner of this home, Freddy and beg him not to throw me back out into the unforgiving and harsh world I would do anything not to return to.

But even as that thought crossed my mind, I just as quickly realised how pointless that would be. Not only did the other children's word have the benefit of the doubt over my own since I had just proven that I could not be trusted. Not to mention after all the kind things Freddy had done for me bringing me here, feeding me and tucking me into bed when he was around, if this was the way I repaid him then to beg for anything other than to be punished as harshly as possible was an insult to both myself and the man who saved my life.

They say that apologising after you do something wrong shows a very good thing called "Virtue" which is bound to make those you upset forgive you or at least cut some slack. But then tell me this.

 **Just what good is virtue when you're pummelling someone!?**

Especially if its for no good reason other than because you're a selfish and wicked person who doesn't care about anyone but themselves?

And that's when without further delay, I began to run and run.  
I had to get as far away from here as possible since I had clearly outstayed my welcome.

I had become something of a celebrity that day.

I had caused the punch of 87.

...

"Is that the worst thing you ever did then?" asked Shego as Ann uncontrollably paused a moment to pull herself together.  
"If you ask me, then that creep got what was coming to him."

Though Shego's impetuousness and clear inability to see the advantages of nonviolence left a lot to be desired, this was probably the kindest and nicest thing Shego had said so far to Ann. It really was the little things that showed Shego not to be the remorseless criminal that everyone said she was.

Ann had to close her eyes to force back tears as she sighed a deep irrepressible sigh.  
"I really wish it was Shego. I really do."

 **Boy this super chapter took a chunk out of me. But it was great fun to write.** **Please review and favourite if you wish to support me.** **Next chapter may never come out.**


	13. Ann's past 2: I steal in the streets

**Russia 1987**

I jumped from a window knowing the front door would be locked. I had to leave before Freddy saw me again.  
Before the other kids came back for me again.

Even if Freddy being merciful as he was decided to spare me from the certain punishment of being abandoned once more, the thought of lowering myself to such an undignified depth was far, far worse.  
Not to mention what the other children had in store for the new bully who had the cruelty to beat up their leader.  
Their leader who was probably despite his faults, a very attractive and popular boy who deserved much more respect than I had shown him when I lashed out simply because...

...

"It wasn't even your own fault. Those nasty kids were the ones who brought it upon themselves. If anything now they know to keep their hands off you if they know what's good for them" blurted out Shego unintentionally.  
Even she wasn't going to let Ann continue to justify why those dimwitted barbarians back in that horrible place were supposed to be the ones that Ann rooted for.

In fact if it was Shego back in that orphanage with or without her superpowers, that so called ringleader would have been dealing with more than just a broken nose. And the others stupid and thoughtless enough to be part of his so called gang of buddies wouldn't have even had the chance to talk to this clearly very careless and apathetic "Freddy" before Shego was done venting out her undiluted fury on those idiots who were far too unruly to even be classed as proper villains.

...

 **Russia 1987 "My way or the highway"**

It didn't feel good at all Shego. It felt terrible to have hit someone with so little compassion and for no good reason.  
But feelings could be saved for later I said to myself as I rushed into a room which I happened to remember had a large window.  
And with two smooth movements I flung the window open and jumped out.

Even though I was only on the second floor when all this took place, it was still a long way down but in my panic I had not the time to consider that.

I somehow got down to the ground below with no bones broken thanks to the thick snow which helped cushion my descent.  
And without looking back I sprinted for the nearest gate.  
For a fraction of a second I hesitated knowing full well that I was leaving behind food, shelter and the prospect of ever finding one trustworthy friend who really understood me.

Then I ran like there was no tomorrow down directions I made up as I went along and only stopped when my legs felt as if they would break in half. I had left behind one life in exchange for another. And I knew from the get go that nothing good awaited a quick tempered puncher with no friends.

...

So how did you end up here with such a lovely family, such a talented daughter and such a great job which probably required tons and tons of degrees? Shego thought to herself.  
...

 **Russia 1988 "My way or the highway"**  
News of the orphanage closing down soon made the paper. If the rumours I heard while cowering in the safety of dark alleys were to be believed then hardly a fortnight later, someone had ratted the poor benefactor away to authorities and his lifelong dream of sheltering children in need was no more.  
His orphanage ruined and the children left with the snow outside and pigeons for food.  
All my fault.

Even if we had never been as close as we should have been considering we were all in the same boat of having lost our parents long before we were supposed to take care of ourselves, I took a while each night to pray for the other children whose lives I had made hell with my antics.  
Most of all though, I prayed for the boy who from what I last heard of him from whispers on the streets was lying in hospital with eight stitches in his broken nose. People pitied him as they spoke of how even if he hadn't been the nicest child in the world, the devil and little brat who was brash enough to swing her fist into him at so little provocation was the true perpetrator.

And if that little girl was ever seen again that they should have a good old classic lynch mob to brighten up the mood of everyone's bleak lives a little. That and to set an example that even this lawless land with no proper leaders had its standards.

Call it wild and needless paranoia or even just a stupid and unneeded decision to make my already miserable life even less enjoyable, but I never wore my hair as long as I used to since the day I heard those words of warning.  
Don't ask me how I cut it though.

My problems didn't end there though. As brave and tough as I tried to be, I still needed something to eat.  
But begging for food was not something I could bring myself to do anymore. Not since a permanent mark had appeared on my right knuckle from when I sacrificed the last shred of goodness in myself. And even when I did force myself to grovel and plead for any last morsel anyone might want to spare me, the answer was a short and sharp no as I was almost shooed off as quickly as I had come.

A child should not be out and about wandering without a responsible man or woman nearby was the reply I sometimes got when I asked the reason no one wanted to give me anything. "You can only be up to no good therefore and it's in your best interest to go back to your parents before we turn you over to the police" a few even added.

And they were of course right. Very, very right.

I had thought myself already the worst person alive by then, but somehow I sunk even lower than that.

Being a girl who was both blessed and cursed with an almost perfect memory meant that I had remembered bad things being said about the many factories where even those deemed too useless for the rest of society could find gainful employment. Gainful enough to survive on at least.  
My parents in fact told me of countless dangers that came to most foolish enough to venture to the slaughterhouses designed as good and honest workplaces.  
Saw-blades drills and long hours spent down in cramped underground mines filled with valuable metals and rocks but also horribly poisonous fumes were just some of the dangers that awaited those wishing to take a last chance for their bread after all else failed.

The only other options for the seven year old me were fancier jobs in fancier places like those nice cafe's and shops that the richer people in our town went to visit.  
But if people were willing to refuse help to me simply because of my shifty movements and my less than desirable age, it was a safe bet that any semi decent establishment would not want an underage beggar girl showing up at their door.  
They had to keep a good image after all for the tourists and the rich which were their sources of income and why take a dirty young tramp like me over one of the richer girls who looked to me like they were from another world.

It was then that I made the biggest blunder in my life. One that topped my previous mistake of hitting that boy in the home of a man who I would now never be able to repay for his kindness.

Taking a jealous glance at two well dressed ladies buying and eating a hot dog one day, I managed eventually to convince myself that it was either my way or the highway.  
And the highway was a dangerous path full of dead animals which no one in their right mind would be foolish enough to try to walk on.

I decided, I decided to steal in the streets.

...

"You what?" sputtered the second child of the Go family, her earlier tirade of emotions becoming one of utter shock as Ann said the words "steal in the streets."

...

 **Russia 1988 "Princess of thieves"**

Its true Shego. Back then as a immature and reckless kid, I too had no respect for the law.  
I would wait until the owners of a home left their houses and then sneak out from my hiding place to raid whatever I could before legging it.

At first I stuck with houses near the edge of the rural urban fringe knowing that these would be less guarded and spaced further apart from each other to afford the owners all the privacy they desired. All the privacy I desired too when I broke into house after house looting as much as I could carry in a rucksack which I had found during my first such raid which was very simple since the owners put their keys under their doormat.

It was a beautiful and well made little thing, clearly designed for a young boy or girl to take their books to school.  
Judging by the family photo on the table where I found it, I guessed it was a boy with green eyes and a nervous smile.  
It took all my willpower that time to force myself to ignore the happy family photo and continue my raid by first taking everything in the fridge and cupboards which I could carry and then collecting as much water from a nearby tap as I could using a cute little bottle I found in my new rucksack.

I left the rest be since I knew that food and water were the only things I needed to stay alive.

I got more and more sadistic with the next house going as far as to loot a fashionable and warm little coat along with the usual food and drinks. Warmth would help keep me from starving for longer and protect me from hypothermia which food would not.

"They're rich and I'm poor. I don't think they'll miss a few of their things going to me and they'll be doing me a favour" I thought as I took even more items that were not food at the third house which I got through by breaking a hole in the back window large enough for me to get through using a rock.

A few books would keep me preoccupied and help teach me useful things that only the rich children usually got to see, and a cuddly teddy would help me stay even warmer at night and sleep much more comfortably. Particularly if I take the matches in the cupboard which would last even me a while.

But instead of learning that stealing was wrong and that I was becoming a terrible person, I grew bolder and bolder and went for house after house.

Sometimes I had to climb over tall stony walls and sometimes I had to pick a lock, but it all seemed just so much fun.

My ego got the better of me one warm and pleasant summer night.

Not a breath of wind so I could easily hear if anyone was around.  
This owner hadn't even been clever enough to close his window so there was no need for me to go through the trouble of picking the lock which had been easy since I found an ice pick.  
It was a tiny opening but overconfidence made me stupid and I tried anyway to squeeze in.

I forced myself through the opening eventually yet the smallest mistake did me in.

I stepped on a loose floorboard which I did not see in the darkness. If the loud creak wasn't bad enough, then having me trip and fall onto the ground with a mighty thud was all it took to get the attention of the occupant upstairs.  
A very light sleeper for good reason, he was a hunter since I would soon come to become well acquainted with his faithful rifle.

Loud footsteps were already ringing from upstairs by the time I was scrambling to my feet and began making for the window through which I came knowing my robbery attempt had gone horribly wrong.

But by the time I had forced myself back out the window, I had heard a low growl followed by a terrifyingly loud boom which I would only later recognise as the sound of a gun being fired.

Knowing I had no time to waste, I ran with a level of fear I had never once felt before. Adrenaline and a tirade of other chemicals I felt racing in me lent me strength I as a seven year old girl was not supposed to come close to. And so this time when I sprinted into the woods which the house I had attempted to steal from happened to be situated next to, I felt no tiredness, no need to pant.

The only thing I felt was a excruciating sensation in my right shoulder. Like someone had set fire and the skin on that now very painful shoulder was peeling off bit by bit.

And unable to resist the morbid curiosity growing inside me as I grew more and more delirious by the seconds even as I continued to flee hearing the domineering shouts of my pursuer behind me, I dared to turn my head to face the part of my shoulder where it hurt.

And saw a bizarre gleaming metallic object embedded into a small but no less horrific injury which was spewing out too much blood for me to look at.

I felt tired, I felt weak.  
Began to feel as if I could run no more as I uncontrollably began to stagger despite my best efforts to shrug off this awful feeling.

I was falling, flailing weakly on the muddy forest floor. With my last breaths I saw a thin trail of blood.

And then my fear turned to happiness as the blackness which promised release from everything took me away.  
And happiness turned to satisfaction. Satisfaction that I had finally in a way been brought to justice for all the bad things I had done in my short and immoral life of caring only about myself.

Always taking what wasn't mine. Always jumping to violence when it wasn't called for.

It was what I deserved.


	14. Ann's past 3: A kinder person

Shego didn't even know what to say about that.  
Of course being the sidekick for a so called "mad" genius meant that she too had been through a few close brushes but what Ann described now...

The blood, the pain and the fear the poor red haired girl unlucky enough to be in such a terrible country was feeling in that moment.  
Kim's mother had survived even closer encounters with the grim reaper than her much more well known daughter.  
And her daughter's entire life revolved around a never ending streak of life threatening missions.

And unable to find the right words in her own mind to describe this phenomenon she had just learned about, Shego stole a quote from a joke book she had perused to while away the time when her boss wasn't ordering her left and right with crazy tasks.

Kim's mum didn't just cheat death the same way her daughter did. Kim's mum actually played against death in his own game and won fair and square.

Though she hated to admit it, Shego was beginning to see why Kim's mantra of "I can do anything" had come from and it certainly wasn't just from beating the much more experienced and powerful Shego time and time again as much as Shego liked to think it was.

...

 **A new religion: Russia 1987**

Something stirred deep within me as the world around me got darker and darker.  
Something about how the great future daddy spoke about. About how one day I would make a change important enough to forever change the wicked ways of this cruel world for the better.

It was those words of wisdom which I just happened to remember in time, which all but shouted to me that though I had lowered myself to such a depth it wasn't time to leave the world behind just yet. I just had to keep going somehow.  
And though in that moment I might have been a uneducated seven year old bumpkin who hardly knew the basics of reading and writing, I was not stupid enough not to realise that to stop the bleeding I needed a bandage.

Despite my blurry vision and shaking hands, I managed to fumble out an extra shirt from my rucksack and tie it around the arm with the injured shoulder.  
It wasn't much but it would buy me a few extra minutes before I lost too much blood.

Little did I know in the next seconds I spent wildly running forward in search of anyone who might find it in their heart to help even me, that the neat trick I had just pulled off would one day be the very thing that would earn me my bread when I eventually gave up my bad habits.  
As for that moment, I had to find help and quickly before the last bit of my consciousness left me.

Seeing a clearing in the distance and even what I thought to look like a light of some sort, I ran towards it putting every last bit of my strength into my legs. It was my last chance and already the world seemed to be spinning round and round as my head got dizzier with every step.  
I hadn't the time to care what kind of creep would have their abode in a odd and secluded place such as these dark and scary woods. To me that light which seemed so far away even now that I was but a few metres away was my salvation.

Better to die trying to live than simply lie down and give up as tempting as that seemed since even if I lived, it was only a matter of time before I found myself strung up after the events of tonight.

I saw the house where the beautiful and radiant sparkling white light from earlier had been coming from and with my last breath, yelled help.  
And no longer able to tolerate the huge loss of blood which the hunter's bullet had caused me, I very grudgingly submitted to the peace of unconsciousness knowing my weak and raspy voice was far too quiet to attract very much attention despite my best efforts.

I tripped and fell as my legs gave way and my face hit the dusty forest floor.  
And then silence and darkness as the pain in my shoulder intensified too much for my weak body to bear. But just then the door swung open and standing before me was a kindly man even sweeter looking than the owner of the orphanage who had helped me before.  
The glow in his humble eyes and the robes he was dressed in without a word he ushered me inside as he sat me on a bed.

What he did to me in the next hour to sooth the injury I thought for sure would kill me this time, I didn't know.

Though when I would later ask my next caretaker and savior about it he would mention a kind of ointment as well as a special band tied tightly around my arm which would fully curb the bleeding that my own improvised bandage could only slightly slow down.

You could say that back then I was a lot like the opposite of my daughter. Having to be helped over and over again with no power whatsoever to repay the people who helped me. And because i wasn't even popular, not a lot of people even wanted to help me when I begged for help.

The new caretaker introduced himself as Father Istom and asked me why I had come here all by myself.  
I would have refused if it were anyone else but his outfit and the way he referred to me as "child" in a gentle and soft way made me spill my guts for the first time in my life that night.

I broke down in tears of genuine remorse as I told him everything.  
How I had ended up rushing into this house which had been put here specifically to not be found by those untrustworthy city people as he put it.  
About the horrible times I stole in the street for no good reason. Even about how when I was very little I had punched someone hard enough to potentially cripple them for the rest of their life. I did not dare to mention that the victim of a punch had bullied me himself since I was still in my own eyes, the only bully.  
Unable to stop myself by then I even told him about my own parents and how they'd lost their lives long before their time.

It was as if he already knew half of what I was going to say long before I even said it when he offered me his sympathies by the end of my confession, and praised me saying that confessions were good for my soul.

Its really not necessary for me to prolong a tale which has already run a great length too long by telling you how lucky I felt in that moment as the realisation that I had been saved from certain death twice slowly sunk in as the injury I felt for sure would be my end began to dull.  
Also not necessary are the details of how the next short years which I barely remember by now were the happiest I'd ever lived.  
Hidden away from the cold and nasty gazes of the town I'd never been particularly fond of and free from the fear of being picked on or bullied, I vowed from that day forth to be a kinder person who saw life with a brighter point of view.

Giving money to the poor and avoiding unnecessary emotions like anger or hatred were just the start of my newfound life goals under Father Istom's comfortable yet strict conditions for me. Any time I lived on by now was borrowed, time I was not supposed to have.  
More than ever because of the extraordinary circumstances I had been through though I had yet to celebrate my eighth birthday even by now, I nodded as hard as I could and listened with all my heart during the sermon's my saviour would hold daily for me.

Sermons that blasted the other supposed religions for forgetting the entire purpose and reason of what at least he thought a religion was supposed to do in the first place, and by extension what at least he thought the entire purpose of the short and difficult struggle known as life was meant for.  
Sermons that were not in the least afraid to insult the failings he believed that every church in town were guilty off in his eyes.  
How he could no longer stand that with all the money the other priest's had managed to collect together to build such grand and impressive monuments which were furnished with such fine decorations like statues and stained glass windows, they could have put it to a far better cause than the misguided one they picked.

How he was appalled with how his fellow robed ministers cared so much more about hunting a so called group called "heretics" than they did about helping the homeless man down the street.

To the former pastor who had long fled to hide here in his old home hidden by trees from the corrupt and greedy town, only one cause was acceptable as a purpose of life.  
Only one rule if followed made for an acceptable and pure religion to follow to the end.  
A rule that soon became my purpose of living and to this day the one rule I have valued above all others be them laws of justice or otherwise.

 **The one purpose of religions and by extension life itself for me, was to prevent the loss of life and of happiness.**

 **To always choose the option that would result in not only the least loss of the valuable treasure of life, but also the least loss of happiness.**

Anyone whose goal was minimising pain while maximising happiness for others he told me, was to be valued as a close friend regardless of their gender, name or background.  
It was the first rule in the religious scriptures he would read to me each morning. The religious scriptures of his newfound faith which he had found which he warned me was highly frowned upon by the many despite its growing popularity.

A faith that did not believe in the man in the sky who could do absolutely anything.

"If he could do anything. Why is there so much suffering and unfairness in this world?" he sometimes shouted when he was particularly angry.

 **Fluttershy the pony**

Father Istom's new goddess and by extension my goddess was a pony.  
A beautiful and very friendly pony in a magical world not far from the one we lived in.

A pony whose immortality came not from her immunity to mortal dangers such as fear and injury, but from the selfless acts she lived to perform which would make her well remembered and spoken about long after her inevitable passing.

The pony's name was Fluttershy. Her talent being her kindness and determination to always sacrifice herself for the betterment of others even when they had been the worst they possibly could toward her.  
Liked by few and laughed at by many for her apparent uselessness, Fluttershy's demure and gentle nature never wavered once.  
Just as eager to help the mean and nasty stallion that had kicked her in the face as she was any other pony, Fluttershy''s role as a deity was to serve as an example of how every person should have been trying to act in both times of joy and sadness.

"My little pony" was the title given to the books that Father Istom now used as his new series of what equated to us as bibles and psalms. The copies he had were very old since the entirety of the remaining copies had long been burned by the government for reasons unknown.  
"Perhaps they wanted to stop us from gaining the hope and strength we all needed to begin to put our lives back together", was his only guess when I asked him why anyone would want to burn books this useful and motivational.

...

Shego had to try very hard not to laugh. But the very instant the slightest snicker erupted from the villain's lips, Ann's until now calm expression quickly replaced itself with a look of pure fury that threatened consequences beyond imagination if Shego didn't cease her rudeness at once.

A furious glare that would make even the most morally bankrupt serial killers that Shego had faced in her hero days back in team Go, look like saints in comparison.  
...

 **Russia 1992.**

I would gladly have spent the rest of my life living with just a good and simple man and going nowhere else.  
There was a stream nearby full of fresh and clean water as well as plenty of animals that were as tasty as they were strong and healthy so we never really needed to go into town.

Most of our days were spent in a similar way. Another story of Fluttershy the pony in the morning followed by morning chores, be it tidying the house or going into the woods to find more food. Having spent most of my life sneaking around house to house like a shadow had made me a very good hunter and it was easy for us to gather enough food for both of us.  
The house the pastor let me live in wasn't exactly expensive but it was warm and that was all that mattered for me.  
He liked me despite me faults and often thought of me as the daughter he never had.  
I had eased the loneliness he thought he'd forever be stuck with since the day he left his church and he was definitely happy to have just one follower of his newfound faith which gave us both the reason and strength we needed to pull through our hard but now tolerable lives.  
Each prayer to Fluttershy made me feel a little closer to heaven.

We didn't pray to Fluttershy by silently praying and reading a book but instead by dancing in front of a sacred scarecrow and singing songs that encouraged all the sad and unprivileged friends in the world to live another day.  
An ode to the magic of friendship, a concept sadly long forgotten in the dark days that we now lived in.  
Worse than a incurable disease drifting through the lands and worse than a thousand bloody wars was the lack of friendship as Fluttershy's teachings taught.

A world without friendship was a world where no one trusted each other any more. Where even allies supposed to be on the same side as each other fought as if they were enemies all because of a lack of understanding.  
That moral made all the more meaningful when Father Istom called me friend and begged me to run away one day when he had heard on a rare trip to the town, that war had been declared. I was given few details before that man handed me a bag and told me to get far away from here.

He gave me rough directions to the nearest station and reassured me that there was at least enough money for me in the bag to buy a ticket to somewhere near enough to the beach where hopefully I could somehow board a ship that would take me to some better land than this.  
When I asked him to come with me, he only smiled as he told me that it was time for him to stop hiding like a coward and to prove that even if he had been a terrible person all his life, at least he practised what he preached.  
The loss of life would be great, he claimed, and the armies were burning down everything in their path as they approached this very town slaughtering every Russian in their way. Especially children.

"Goodbye Ann. May Fluttershy be with you." he intoned as he waved me away desperately.

Knowing that he only wanted what was best for me and that I had made promises which I couldn't keep if I was to die here and now, I ran into the woods and didn't look back. This time without crying.

Sure enough I soon arrived at a small yet very decorated little building by a set of rails where with a heavy heart I handed over the few notes I found in the bag.  
My last thoughts as I sat on the nearly empty train which was empty except for me and a couple of uniformed guards who were at least kind enough to hand me a sandwich and a glass of hot coffee after I presented my ticket, I took the time to recite to myself one more time the three most important commandments that I had promised both myself and Father Istom.

Commandment one: Always choose the lesser loss of life when it comes to a choice. And if it comes to a choice where either you or another person has to be sacrificed, then fight to be the one who takes the hit.

And Commandment two: A lot can be said about a person from how they treat those that do nothing for them.

...

"Commandment three is the one I think you should learn Shego. And since I can see you're clearly very tired by now, I think here is a good time to end my story which I can't thank you enough for listening." Ann gratefully announced to a by now yawning and rapidly blinking Shego.

"And what's that?" yawned a very tired yet also very affected Shego who was still trying to stomach half the story Ann had just told her about how the successful mother of three hadn't exactly had it easy either in her own youth. It was becoming incredibly difficult for Shego to hate Kim's mother if not Kim's entire family, but Shego was still determined to do her best not to let this newfound connection she and Ann"Dr" Possible shared to stop her from brutally attacking the red haired agent that was still her sworn enemy the next time they met.

This didn't change a thing, Shego insisted to herself as violently as she could.

"I know you haven't exactly had it easy, Shego and neither have I. But please just try to realise one thing before you go back to beating up my daughter who cares about you as much as I do."

Shego just yawned as she stretched and tried to settle herself to rest. She had heard enough for one night. Had Ann been paying close attention she might have seen a single tear slide down the green skinned mercenary's cheeks when Ann in a pleading whisper spoke her final words for the night before leaving her clearly very exhausted and injured patient to rest for now.

"The end doesn't always justify the means. Shego. Think about if all this is what you really want. You can get what you want through not hurting others."


	15. Cheering Bonnie up

Bonnie Rockwaller sat sulking in the school cafeteria, staring angrily at the wall in cold silence.

The two excuses she had for her sisters had once again taken everything away from her just when she thought to get some much needed rest from that stuck up show-off Kim who had been reported missing a few days ago after supposedly leaving for what was rumoured to be a especially high threat level mission of sorts in distant lands.

...  
Global justice, the employers who gave Kim the mission said that a search in such a snowy and unsafe region such as the one their favourite unofficial young recruit would take at least a few days, and even then warned everyone to expect the worst.  
"I hope every bone in her body is broken when those creeps eventually find her. It would serve her right." muttered Bonnie angrily under her breath when their teacher announced the news.

And when just as her temper that day was beginning to look up at the prospect of not having to be in contact with the far too lucky redhead who had been stealing Bonnie's thunder for far too long to forgive by now, Bonnie happily sauntered into that week's cheerleader's meeting only to learn that she had still not been elected captain of the squad despite Kim's absence.

Another girl who the sports teacher proudly named as "Hope Sandreams" instead bowed modestly as the cheerleader's clustered around said girl completely ignorant of the late arriving Bonnie who only stood fuming with her teeth tightly clenched.

"On second thought" she whispered to herself as she slid her eyes away from the happy crowd still celebrating their new white haired captain who seemed almost to turn her gaze to briefly look at the now almost maddened Bonnie "I hope that Kim never comes back. I hope that an angry mob of mobsters find her first so that she never gets found." And without even gracing the crowd who was only now beginning to realise her presence, she rushed out of the room with a quiet yet dangerous growl. Who needed these losers as friends and teammates anyway when she was so much cooler than anyone of them?

And just that evening when she had stormed home angrily, determined to catch the season special of a certain romance show that was the only thing she felt in that instant that could restore her to some hope of regaining her lost dignity and sanity, there on the couch sat her two older sisters Connie and Lonnie holding a huge box of nacho's with their backs turned to the younger sister who they pretended not to notice despite how Bonnie slammed the house door as hard as she could upon entry to the sizeable and richly furnished abode the three prodigies shared.

"Change the channel. My favourite show is on and I don't want to miss this very special episode. " Bonnie said in the most sincere and calm tone she could muster in that moment of anger from the humiliating day she had been through. She hoped that if she sounded halfway polite that her chances of being paid attention to by her two much larger and usually very apathetic older sisters.

"We don't like that show. If you're not going to sit and watch this show quietly then just leave." was the scornful and condescending reply.

"And lay your hands away from our chips. They're not yours. Get your own." Lonnie angrily scolded when she held the box of nachos away from the hungry Bonnie who could not help but ask for a few of them to sooth her painful hunger which had been brought on by a small portioned lunch on account of an exam Bonnie had been forced to retake that lunchtime in particular.

...

Those were bad memories which the frustrated Brunette was now recalling once more as she grumbled quietly to herself about the rally competition she had not come even third in that day on account of lack of sleep for a few night's now.  
Connie and Lonnie had never been particularly good to her but the events of that evening and several others that week seemed to have those two sink to an all time low as if fate was trying to deprive Bonnie of peace she thought she was sure to have with Kim's departure from her life.

They were sure to come home that day holding bright and gleaming trophies from their sport events while Bonnie came empty handed, and that was sure to give them all the more ammunition they'd use as insults.  
Insults that were intimate and horrible sounding enough to bring even the usually stoic and proud young Brunette who was charming enough to have a huge crowd of friends at her school despite her flaws, into a shivering husk that barely managed not to let Connie and Lonnie see her tears and could only manage a very weak "fine" when asked later by their oblivious mother how her day was.

She continued to sit sulking in the corner she knew would be almost completely devoid of other students not even caring how hungry that morning's sports had made her. It was only the knelling of the lessons bell that barely broke her out of her trance as she struggled to her feet and began to slowly amble towards the final lesson of the day feeling as if she was carrying the weight of the world on her terribly strained back made weak by all the running and puffing she had forced herself to endure in the hopes of getting just one trophy.

She didn't even have the strength to wave hello to her partner Tara as she slipped into her seat and shifted her sight towards the clock on the wall, praying for a quick end to this hour.

Horrible laughter rang in her mind as she sadly sat waiting on the bus, her puckered countenance a testament to how eager and at the same time how fearful she was to be getting home soon. She just wanted this day to be over with so that her sisters would be done mocking her misfortune as soon as possible and hopefully leave her alone afterwards.

The bus slowly screeched to a halt and very reluctantly Bonnie stood up and strode done the aisle for the street outside trying her best not to look at the several other students who were all glaring at her with a morbid mixture of curiosity and fear. They knew it was best not to ask the "leader" that gave them all the little popularity they managed to salvage anything lest she snap and turn on them. She knew all their dirty secrets. Secrets that they'd protect with their very life for reasons Bonnie Rockwaller obviously had not a care in the world for.  
So each one of the worried students who'd been anxiously eyeing the tall and muscular brunette throughout the entire journey forced themselves to seal their lips and look as far away as they could as the dangerously silent school bully passed them all like a dark shadow.  
It was only when they had seen her exit the bus and when the sound of the brunette's quiet but eerie footsteps died away that they began to converse amongst each other quietly once more.

"And now the rest of the school turns against me just because stupid Kim Possible's not here." Bonnie thought to herself, just narrowly resisting the urge to throw a tantrum out in broad daylight in the usually quiet suburb she resided in.  
She walked quickly down the sidewalk wishing to get the embarrassing moment when she walked through the door with no trophies out of the way as soon as she could.

But instead as she cautiously knocked on the finely painted hardwood door to her house and stood waiting with bated breath, out came the kindly and friendly faced lady that Bonnie hated to admit that she deeply loved on account of the humiliation she felt whenever the woman known as her mother "Mrs Rockwaller" showed up around school.

Unable to think of anything good or meaningful to tell her clearly very concerned mother about the sad day she had just been through in school, Mrs Rockwaller took the cue to speak first. The first time she'd ever been the one to break the ice in a conversation between herself and her favourite daughter who she believed to be much more thoughtful of a person than either of her two older sister.

"Bonnie. Dear. What's wrong? Did something bad happen at school today?"

The usually upbeat and proud brown haired cheerleader had not the heart to reiterate the sad thoughts that had been getting more and more difficult to keep inside her with every passing day for the past week now.  
She didn't think her scatterbrained mother as well meaning as she as a parent tried to be, could do anything to save her from the harsh treatment it was her luck to endure from two torturers she preferred to pretend were not related to her.  
Nor could her mother understand the pain of always being second rate in school with or without the presence of the nasty red haired meanie, who didn't even spend as much time in school trying to make friends or garner attention as Bonnie was forced to in order to form her clique.

Kim honestly had no idea how difficult it was for her to keep the few friends she did have when all she had to do was boast a little about her so called adventures she took part in while she was away from school. Bonnie would have gladly bet a year's pocket money that less than half of it held even the slightest grain of truth.  
None of what Kim boasted she had been able to do should have been possible for any human being, however talented.  
And why everyone but Bonnie herself was so ready to believe a packet of paper thin lies, Bonnie would never know.

"Are you alright? You look upset." Mrs Rockwaller gently said as she put a hand over her youngest daughter's shoulder to try and calm the poor girl down.

"I am." Bonnie eventually admitted quietly, unable to resist the innocent face her mother made at her any longer.

"I'm sorry to hear that Bonnie. Come inside and we can talk about it over a cup of hot tea and biscuits."

And Bonnie's joyless frown softened a little as she followed her mother into the dining room which was thankfully empty. Made even better by how Bonnie hadn't seen or heard another soul on her way into the dining room where she tiredly sat down, feeling the many years of jealousy and hatred towards her three femme- fatale antagonists on her back even as she sipped the hot tea her mother soon brought out for her.

One teaspoon of sugar and a tiny drizzle of milk, just the way the brunette liked to unwind after a long difficult day gone wrong.

"I've heard that you've not been very happy at school lately dear. Is that true?" Bonnie's mother gently asked as Bonnie sipped the warm beverage feeling her stress begin to vanish with every drip of tea that ran down her by now incredibly sore throat.

"Who says that. School's been going alright for me. Today might have been a little stressful but it's nothing to worry about mother."

Bonnie's mother seemed to see right through Bonnie's white lie as she wistfully looked her daughter in the eyes and quietly gave a sigh.  
"It's alright Bonnie. I know it can't be easy for you. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to."

Bonnie nodded gratefully but said no more.

"I want to help you Bonnie, I really do. You've been making us very worried for a while now and so I thought of something that I think might cheer you up."

"And what's that?" asked the still very tired and angry brunette girl, trying very hard not to sound sarcastic or rude.

Bonnie's mother's worried eyes seemed to light up and her low and a ghost of a smile returned to her concerned expression.  
"I think a psychologist at Middleton's hospital would be good for you." she announced excitedly clearly eager to burst into song. "They're very nice people who know all about how to cheer you up when you're not feeling quite yourself and I think you should go see one of them."

Bonnie very nearly laughed at her mother's joke. Surely her mother's opinion hadn't sunk so low of her so that now Bonnie's mother thought her daughter "mentally challenged". Had Connie and Lonnie been spreading bad rumours about her again or had her mother grown to love her two older sisters so much that she was willing to let that love cloud the crazy woman's judgement.  
The only people Bonnie knew off that ever went to psychologists or "shrinks" as Bonnie preferred to address them as were at best retarded idiots whose performance in life as a whole had become so sub par that they had been left to play in a corner by themselves doomed to never find a friend.  
At worst they were dangerous madmen who had either acquired or inherited mental disorders so severe that the only place for them was a cell in a heavily guarded asylum where they would be clad in a straight jacket and chained to a wall on account of how untrustworthy they were.  
And Bonnie would not have even her own beloved mother claiming that she as the most talented cheerleader and most popular girl of Middleton High belonged to either of those two pathetic groups of pathetic people. This was worse than hearing her two sisters call her names the whole night long.  
Far, far worse since it came from the one grown up Bonnie thought she could still trust even now.

"Pardon my language mom." replied Bonnie softly, using all her strength to avoid raising her voice "But I'm not a retard. I don't need to be treated like a retard."

"I didn't mean it that way dear. I just feel that maybe you needed some help regarding the issues that I clearly can't help you with." was the beyond apologetic reply that immediately made Bonnie regret the bad thoughts she had of her trustworthy mother. "I just want to help you feel better. I just can't stand to see you sad like this"

"And how is this supposed to make me feel better?" Bonnie asked. She wasn't doubtful of her mother's good intentions anymore but she still needed more proof that her mother wasn't being helpful but in the wrong way.

"Please just give it a try Bonnie. Kim's mum, Dr Possible tells me that psychologists in her hospital are really nice people. Patients go in and come out feeling better than they ever could imagine. Kim's mum is a very nice lady and I think you should take her advice Bonnie."

Bonnie very nearly broke down into tears at these words. So now not content with ruining her life in school and stealing her reputation as Middleton high's most popular student, Kim Possible and her crooked family of crooks were meddling with Bonnie's familial affairs. Trying to drag the good Rockwaller name through the mud no doubt so that the Possible's could make Bonnie and her family's name stink from one end of the country to another. And they would start by tricking her own naive mother who was too mild and kind and generous to not believe their wicked lies.

"You've gone too far Kim Possible" Bonnie cursed to herself. "Now I hope the mob that catches you tortures you as slowly and painfully as possible before they kill you."

"I'm not going to take advice from a bunch of meanies who have done nothing but ruin my life since the day I laid eyes on them." Bonnie bluntly quipped. "No way. No how."

Bonnie's mother looked upon her daughter with a mixture of sympathy and shock. Surely little Bonnie didn't think that poorly of the well spoken about heroine who had saved hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives through selflessness and compassion.  
And surely her little girl would never have a vendetta against a family of what seemed so nice when she had barely even met them.  
Surely Bonnie remembered the time when Ann, Dr Possible had saved the little girl's life after Bonnie had fallen down a flight of steps when she was much younger.  
Surely Bonnie didn't hate the kindly woman who saved her life, not even caring that she hadn't been paid her fee until several weeks after the life saving operation she had just offered the youngest daughter of the back then much poorer Rockwaller family. Or had Bonnie's deep depression blind the once much kinder girl to what was the truth and what wasn't.

"Please Bon-Bon. Don't be like that." pleaded the short brown haired bespectacled mother, who sounded herself as if she would cry too. "You might not like that girl Kim, but I promise you that Kim's mother Ann is nothing like how you think she is. She only wants what's best for both our families and when she and I talked yesterday, she told me just how sorry she and her daughter were if they had done anything to hurt you Bonnie. She told me that she was so worried about the way you looked the last time she saw you and that she really thought you needed help urgently."

"She's lying. The last time she saw me was a long time back which even I don't remember." Bonnie sharply replied, hoping to end this conversation all the sooner.

"You have to go Bonnie. I'm sorry. You really have to do this." Bonnie's mother lightly sobbed, letting her daughter see a single tear roll from her worried eyes. "We're going to go this evening. It's for your own good. Now please Bonnie, be a good girl and get in the car and we're going. I promise you that I will take you to your favourite restaurant for tea when we're finished."

Bonnie might have pretended disdain and disregard for her one remaining parent in front of her fellow students in order to avoid public disgrace and being picked on, but in reality the last thing she wanted was to see her mother cry. She might have cared little about her so called group of friends, she might not have loved her sisters the way she was meant to but if anyone even dared to suggest that she did not love her own mother with all her heart, it was a one way trip to the emergency room for them.

And so Bonnie after quickly apologising and dashing upstairs to put on a better and cleaner set of clothes for the important meeting ahead, leaped towards the family minivan looking like the wealthiest millionaire on the block sporting a spotless set of clothes. If this made her mother happy, then she would do it regardless of how she was bound to be laughed at once others found out about this and she was kicked forever from the clique of friends she herself founded.

And her saintly mother had promised her a trip to the best eatery in town once this tedious experience was over, and she could barely say no to that.

"Good girl. I knew I could count on you." the older Brunette who was already in the car happily praised. "Now fasten your seat belt. We need to get there quickly."

They sped through the beautifully lit up evening city, a gorgeous pale orange canvas painted over the beautiful evening sky. A cool and gentle breeze blew through the crisp air fanning Bonnie's tired face perfectly as she opened the window to get some air. The perfect weather and the perfect view of the city the way she liked it.  
It was as if fortune itself was smiling upon the Rockwaller family. But alas, there was still a psychologist meeting Bonnie had to endure without being put into a straight jacket and thrown into a cell. If only stupid Kim and stupid Dr Possible stayed out of her private affairs.

"I will be back in two hours to pick you up. Please be good and have a nice time. Remember this is your time Bonnie to enjoy." reminded Mrs Rockwaller as Bonnie anxiously bade her mother farewell after stepping out of the car following a short journey that seemed barely a few minutes. "It was so nice of Dr Possible to give you an appointment at such short notice. And remember, we can go anywhere you want for dinner tonight as long as you behave yourself."

Then the expensive purple sports car sped away into the distance, seemingly eager to get as far away from Bonnie as possible.

Taking a deep breath and murmuring a silent prayer, Bonnie walked through the automatic doors that led to a huge waiting room furnished with expensive throne-like chairs and shelf after shelf of expensive magazines. There weren't many people left here at this hour but not one of them seemed in the slightest troubled or upset or even bored to be in a place as morbid or boring as a hospital. Perhaps it was how comfy their chairs looked or that the kid in the corner was too occupied by whatever magazine he had covered their face with to notice where they were.

Ignoring these happy patients who seemed not in the slightest impatient, Bonnie waltzed straight up to the smiling receptionist who immediately looked up from their desk to face her even before she had arrived at the desk as if her presence was long expected.

Weird, thought Bonnie.

"Bonnie Rockwaller is it." the dark haired man in the smart black suit asked as she approached the desk. "Here for a psychologist appointment to deal with confidential issues that do not wish to be shared. Is that correct?"

"Um...sure?" his patient replied, as if unsure of what really to say in response to her arrival being predicted so accurately.

"We've been expecting you Miss Rockwaller. Please, take the elevator to floor six and then keep going until you see room six, six, six." the receptionist excitedly and politely instructed.

Taking the effort to briefly thank the man for his good advice, Bonnie continued onward into the next room towards the elevator shaft and pressed a button for the lift. Unaware that looking at her from some distance up a set of stairs was a red haired doctor with big blue eyes clad in the white uniform that all senior surgeons in the hospital commonly wore when on duty to signify their rank.

She said nothing knowing that if she was seen that Bonnie might not want to keep going with what unbeknown to the school bully now was in fact a life changing talk.  
She was glad that Bonnie had not been paying close attention the night she had given the poor girl a much needed ride to that party which the doctor only now realised was incredibly important. Had Bonnie refused the ride she offered and run away instead, she'd be even more upset and miserable than she was in this instant as she stormed sulkily into the lift that had just arrived, having spent much of the waiting time murmuring curses about how long the wait for something as simple as a lift was.

Things were about to change for everyone, Dr Possible thought to herself as she heard the elevator door close and begin to go up.  
If only Kimberly were here now to witness the beautiful changes her mother was trying to bring into being.  
Changes that should have been made a long, long time ago.

Bonnie exited the lift and after taking another few deep breaths, soon discovered after a few short steps the room the doctor had directed her to.  
Room 666, the number painted on a very plain white door.

With little other choice now that she'd gotten this far, Bonnie knocked gently on the door, closing her eyes briefly to rest them up for whatever nasty surprise awaited her on the other end of this door.

"Please come in. You are expected." came a reply that seemed too melodious sounding to come from any normal person. The sound seemed to make Bonnie feel younger and more carefree with each word it spoke and seemed to draw her hand to the door handle like a moth drawn to a flame. But all this was probably just a facade to make her more comfortable and willing to cooperate in case they felt the need to put her in a straight jacket after all, Bonnie thought as she stepped inside and very slowly dared to open her trembling lids.

Room 666 was painted in the most pure and eye catching shade of heavenly white imaginable and not a single section of the floor, walls or furniture that Bonnie saw looked badly formed.

Unable to look at much more of the room without feeling uneasy at how flawlessly arranged it seemed, Bonnie turned her attention instead to the big and comfortable looking armchair also painted in white which indicated the place where patients such as her were to sit and discuss their inner turmoils and griefs with the psychologist they were assigned.

And speaking of the psychologist that Bonnie had been assigned, it was difficult to look at the relatively tall yet fairly slim young woman sitting on the great white throne behind a white desk without wondering how many times such a delicate young thing could have evaded the fashion police so long for being too attractive to exist.  
The woman was clad in a plain yet no less stylish white robe. The kind unknown to Bonnie, was worn by high ranking church officials who even today would hold a lot of influence.

The way the psychologist's eyes now surveyed Bonnie from behind contact lenses which gave the impression that her eyes were white and pure like the angels from the urban legends Bonnie occasionally heard about benevolent angels who occasionally came down from heaven for a visit. Silly superstition Bonnie thought, until now.

Short bright blonde hair was the only feature that remotely suggested the woman Bonnie could now not look away from was in fact another human.

"Are you my psychologist?" Bonnie said, realising that this silence was awkward and she wanted to get this over with as quickly as she could.

"That's correct. My name is Doctor Lori Loud and I will be looking after you for the duration of your stay" replied the woman in white with a harmonious pitch that could have brought even the most successful singers in the world to cries of envy.  
"We can start wherever makes you comfortable."


	16. Helping Bonnie change

Bonnie took one more glance around the room, at the neatly arranged books on the shelf in the far corner, at the large window behind psychologist "Dr Lori Loud" which gave a near perfect view of Middleton city even from where Bonnie now sat.  
This "Psychologist" if that was who Dr Loud claimed to be, was as much as Bonnie hated to say it a woman of good taste.  
And when such praise came from the cheer leading fashionista as dedicated as Bonnie who refused to wear anything that wasn't the trendiest style of the moment, that meant at least something.

"I didn't really want to come here." Bonnie admitted, unable to bring herself to tell anything but the brutal truth in front of the shining white eyes the blonde doctor clad in the white robe surveyed her with. She didn't care whether that colour were the result of contact lenses or not, their piercing whiteness were too powerful to resist. "I was only told to come here by this other doctor, and then my mother. I don't really know why I'm here in the first place."

The white-eyed blonde sitting behind the desk and by the window gently nodded as if satisfied with Bonnie's answer. She stayed silent for a few seconds which seemed like an eternity to her brown haired trauma patient. She was new to this entire business of psychology and though she had been praised several times by the other doctors for being one of the best if not the best one they'd ever had the pleasure of recruiting, sometimes she still felt a little unsure of herself. Though Dr Lori knew that this brief silence she needed was awkward for both her and her poor patient who she was already beginning to badly pity, she needed to say exactly the right words if she was going to have any chance of getting through.

A lot of the many mishaps in her tragic past she preferred to forever keep to herself had been the very result of her loose and hasty tongue. She could not have this poor girl who had come to her in an hour of dire need to feel any worse.

"From what I understand at least, you've been recommended here after one of our doctors found you in an extremely unpleasant mood one evening and out of great concern for your safety, she then came to us and raised the alarm before sharing this incident with your own mother who then decided that some sessions here might do you some good."

A frown graced Dr Loud's face as her patient angrily slapped herself in the face, for a reason that she could make no guess at. Human emotions were complex things that even those like herself who dedicated their entire life to studying them found difficult to fully understand.  
She did however know to take this as a cue to proceed with extreme caution since this foreshadowed the patient's great instability.  
She could only wish that good friend Clyde was still here to help her figure out what to do next.

"Well get on with it then. I haven't got all day." her patient requested after silently looking down at the ground as for a few seconds. "You claimed that you could cheer me up and all you're doing is making me feel even worse."

Dr Loud resisted the urge to tremble visibly before the now incredibly impatient Bonnie Rockwaller and with great force of will only just managed to maintain eye contact.  
One of the most important things Clyde had taught her about her new job was not to show weakness in front of her patients regardless of how difficult they were with her.  
Most importantly of all, maintaining calm, since failing to remain calm led to blood spilling from your nose and your patients running away in terror and your boss kicking you away from your only job and by extension your only means of making a living, in Clyde's own words.  
"And I don't want any of those bad things happening to a kind and innocent angel like you Lori. You're too pure for this cruel and evil world." Clyde had finished that day's pep talk with, his tone harsh yet mild at the same time out of the great concern he was trying and failing to convey despite his best efforts.

"Let's start with something easy. Why have you been feeling so sad recently?"

It was a lacklustre way to start any conversation, counselling session or not and Lori very nearly pinched herself for having to resort to such a bland and uninspired stratagem. This was not how Clyde's old doctor "Dr Lopez", from whom he took many of his superb teachings from would have begun any session like this.

"If this is the best psychologist that Kim's stupid mother could find for me, then its no wonder stupid Kim grew to be the mean and twisted psychopath she is today." Bonnie groaned inwardly to herself, a gesture not unnoticed by the shining white eyes of the blonde woman in white behind the desk whose eyes noticeably blinked in regret.  
But in the end Bonnie decided if her mother had taken such great pains to get her here, even offering to reward her with dinner out if she but didn't make a fool of herself then it was the least she could do to keep her manners in this conversation at least passable.  
That however was the only reason she would try to take any part in this pointless exchange of banter, which had already wasted much of her valuable time.

"I'm being followed by a very nasty girl at school who won't leave me alone no matter what I do." Bonnie explained, her weary tone making it clear that she expected no help or sympathy whatsoever from the sole listener in the room whose narrowed and tired eyes immediately begun to widen in terror at Bonnie's words. "And I have two sisters who never seem to show me any love. If I keep going, I think I'm going to swear so lets stop there, okay."  
Bonnie took three deep breaths upon finishing the sentence that had very nearly dropped her into a fiery rage in which she rampaged around the room breaking every piece of furniture in sight. Even thinking of her three antagonists made her want to punch everything she could see.

The first part of her patient's shocking sentence made Lori's stomach begin to churn up. The second made her tightly squeeze shut her mouth and cover it tightly with her hand as hard as she could. The blonde psychologist could almost feel the bile coating her tongue as another one of the nasty visions that she never managed to fully free herself from flashed up before her very eyes.  
She could but continue to cover her mouth and squeeze shut her eyes as she waited for the horrible moment to pass.

...

"Please drive me to the comic store later. Just this once, Lori, please help me out." the young white haired boy pleaded, his face a mask of fear and desperation.

"No!"

"Please. The editor of Ace Savvy is in the store today. You don't know how much this will mean to me. Just this once, please help me." the boy's tone becoming weaker and more strained with each word. Was it really so much to ask that just this once ,he be the one receiving some help from his siblings.

"I said no!" was the only reply once more from the tall blonde woman he called his older sister. She did not look at him as she spoke but rather at her blue phone which her gaze was almost entirely fixed upon.

"Please..."

"It doesn't matter how many times you ask Lincoln. I have things to do and the answer will still be no. Now leave me alone." she dismissed the boy with a wave of her arm.

"Even after all the things I've done for..." the boy stopped his sentence there knowing that what he was about to say next would get him nowhere with any of his sisters and instead quietly left the room, leaving the door wide open as he retreated down the corridor head bowed low trying his best to show some respect to the sister that his parents had left in control of the house in their absence.

Had his sister been but paying a shade more attention to her clearly now very upset little brother instead of the handheld communication device she spent far too long on for her own good, she might have heard his next words along with the quiet footsteps that echoed with each step he sullenly took back to the safety of his little room where he knew he would cause no more trouble.

"It's clear that you don't care about me either Lori. I thought you were better than this." she might have heard her little brother say to himself, had she not chosen to drown out her brother's words with a call on her phone to her friend who at least then ,was greatly more important to her than the spoiled and ungrateful family she was forced to live with instead.  
Little did she know how that she would one day come to regret every second of precious time she wasted babbling away on the phone she would one day disassemble and throw into the bin, when she realised too late the consequences of her apathy.

...

The blonde woman continued to shiver uncontrollably as her eyes slowly opened and the feeling of nausea slowly began to die down once again. She knew she had just disgraced herself in front of another patient despite her best efforts. She didn't know why she received such high praise from the other doctors despite these bouts of hysteria she had never fully recovered from ruining session after session of her time with the patients she was supposed to provide comfort and reassurance towards.

"I see" she managed to reply to the very impatient brunette whose eyes were still as hard as stone but for reasons unknown seemed to soften a little at seeing her sudden outburst. "I'm really sorry it's like this for you. Please, tell me more."

Bonnie shook her head. Grown up's these days were weird. No one else had reacted this strongly when she tried in vain to make them see her side of this story. They only ignored her or at worst scolded her for being an ungrateful pig who cared about no one but herself.  
So it really came as a surprise to find the psychiatrist she had at first been so reluctant to see, reacting with such real and heartfelt emotion to her problems.  
This woman's words really did match her pure white eyes. Was she even a normal person?

The psychiatrist listened in polite and respectful silence as Bonnie reiterated once again a story she had long grown tired and bored of repeating.  
Bonnie told her how the girl named Kim was always there to sabotage any moment of success she tried to enjoy, always stealing Bonnie's thunder so to speak.  
How her two spiteful excuses for older sisters always upstaged her in all that she tried to be successful in so that even away from the horrible place she was forced to go to each day for her education, she was not free to savour the little happiness Kim had not taken from her.  
She spoke each word about her predicament expecting it to be at best completely ignored by another uncaring worshipper of the by now world-famous Kim.  
"They got the brains and looks, while I got the rest. At least that's what they'd always tell me." Bonnie wearily said, waiting for the blonde woman who wore far too much white for her own good to take the side of her sisters over hers.

But Dr Loud was silent and attentive throughout Bonnie's retelling of the chain of sad events that had ultimately led her into this spiral of depression which had caused her to be admitted to this hospital in the first place.  
A depression that she had managed for more than twelve long and tedious years to withstand but never really shrug away as the pain got worse and worse each day as Kim's massive circle of fans only grew while hers dwindled and shrunk.  
All despite the fact the idiotic Kimberly Possible had enough bad taste to choose someone as stupid and unattractive as Ronald Stoppable as her best friend and romantic interest.  
"Ronald Stoppable, a brainless moron with no talents and nothing worth liking. No one at school even found him agreeable until Kim came and for some reason gave all her attention to him. Then everyone started liking him while leaving me in the dust."  
Dr Loud nodded but still said nothing as a horrible mixture of pity and anger she was beginning to feel for this misunderstood yet still very mean patient began to resonate more and more painfully to the point where she was almost beginning to feel a headache herself.  
She was glad she had found Bonnie Rockwaller before someone else.  
As usual, Dr Possible had brought another patient to her for a reason.

This patient needed full attention here and now. To have waited even a day longer would have pushed poor Bonnie off the cliff of no return.  
And patients who did fall down that cliff had a nasty tendency of never climbing back up again, as she had been forced to learn herself the hard way. And even now the emotionless and spiteful way Bonnie spoke to her, it wasn't the way any normal person with a shred of morality should have spoken.  
It was as if Bonnie had already surrendered most of her capacity to feel and emote to the extent where she wasn't fully human anymore.  
Human in the way that was to be able to feel regret at one's wrongdoings and understanding with other people's points of view aside from her own.

Lori might well have been looking at a knife wielding madman covered in the blood of his victims. Even he would seem saintly and harmless in comparison to the scary brown haired woman she was dealing with here and now.  
Even Clyde's great teachings couldn't have prepared her for what was unfolding this tragic day.

"I don't think even I can help this patient." she whispered to herself as Bonnie concluded her story with another rant about how her family hated her and how Kim Possible as the scum of the earth needed to go back to the pit in hell from where she came from.

"I know you probably haven't been listening to half of what I just said, but let's hear it. What do you think I should do now?" demanded Bonnie impatiently, clearly near to falling asleep. "What do you, a supposed professional with these kinds of problems, think I should do? Or what even can I do?"

Dr Loud opened her mouth to speak but a word of comfort, but only a pained sigh came out.

"You're probably just going to tell me to get on with it because you don't really care about anything but the high paychecks you get for sitting here with your thumb up your ass all day looking pretty. Or tell me that I'm the one who needs to change because its my rotten life to put up with the horrible people I'm forced to be in contact with.". Bonnie glared at her psychologist with empty eyes as she gritted her teeth and very nearly banged her fist on the desk in anger. She expected just this reaction of cold silence of being ignored.

"Well I just wasted nearly an hour of my valuable time talking to you. And you gave me nothing. Just like the other people I turned to for help, you too didn't help me at all. So thanks for nothing." Bonnie barked angrily, as she slowly began to stand up.  
A picture of Clyde's furious and frowning face flashed before the psychologist's rapidly tearing up eyes as she saw her patient stand and begin to trudge sadly for the door.  
A look he very rarely wore on account of being the optimistic and dependable bringer of joy that he alone could be.  
The one time Lori saw him with that look after circumstances better left forgotten, it had haunted her dreams for months on end and left her waking in the dead of night each night sweating all over. No amount of milk, lullabies or before bedtime exercises had managed to quell the insomnia and only Clyde's reply of yes when out of guilt she begged for his forgiveness gave her back her much needed hours of sleep each night.

But those nightmares would be back once more if this patient didn't leave her room feeling even the slightest bit happier with her problems.  
The thousands of innocent lives this...monster who called herself "Bonnie" could go on to ruin was unthinkable.  
Kim and Ron sounded both like very nice people even if Dr Loud didn't know much about them, and they would likely be the first two victims.

She needed to do something to help Bonnie fast. But Bonnie was already so near the door and was even now reaching for the handle. Lori knew first hand what happened after the Brunette left the hospital and she didn't like it one bit.

"Wait!" she managed to plead just in the nick of time, causing the brown haired girl to very reluctantly turn her head to face the psychologist she'd all but lost hope in once again with a demonic glare.

"I can help you. I've been through all the things you've just described to me and I know how difficult it must be for you as well." Dr Loud confessed, hoping the honesty in her hasty confession would stall Bonnie for just a few seconds for her to think of something else to say. Something that would actually make this meeting at least slightly meaningful.

"You're just saying that to try and make me feel better. You really don't know how horrible that Kim girl has been to me all these years and you never will. So shut up." her client responded, making the blonde psychologist in white church clothing even closer to tears but buying her the much needed extra seconds she needed to fish from a pocket, her keys which she just remembered she always kept on her person.

"It might be best if you spend some time away from your family. So here, take these keys to my house." she said making up each word she spoke on the spot, as she held out the shining golden key in a sweating and uncontrollably shivering hand. "You can come anytime you feel you need a break from all those people."

Bonnie's impatient glare quickly turned to a puzzled look of wonder as she eyed the gleaming golden key. Funny how it looked so special considering it was only an unimportant and generic object such as a house key to a house.  
She didn't know what was so special that it happened to catch her eye in the second when she would have wanted nothing more than to leave this hospital and never come back.

Perhaps it was the way this eccentric psychologist had offered it to her and the body language that suggested that Bonnie taking the key would have been like doing her the favour of a lifetime.  
Perhaps it was the way the key seemed to glitter with quite a pretty sparkle to be quite honest, the light tone of gold it was coloured certainly did make it a good piece of eye candy even if it was only a key and not say a set of pretty earrings instead.  
But the third biggest perhaps in that moment as time seemed to stop dead in it's tracks came from Bonnie the cheerleader's years as a devout of fashion and by extension fine jewellery when she wasn't busy trying to upstage the showboat Kim without success.  
And how Bonnie's experienced fashion eye told her from the first glance she cast upon the small and otherwise mundane item, that this key was not stupid and dinky iron simply painted gold or even gold plated to give fake impressions.

This key was made from real and difficult to find gold. The real thing and it was so much more beautiful.  
And that was all that was needed to completely change Bonnie's until now lacklustre impressions of the blonde loudmouth she thought at first would be of no help to her whatsoever as she looked upon the nearly crying Dr Loud with newfound admiration and greedily grabbed the precious loot from the female doctor's still trembling hand.

"Here are my contact details and my address so you can actually find my house." Dr Loud happily stated as she quickly forked out from a nearby drawer a small card on which was written her name, address and most importantly of all her phone number.  
It was rare that anyone asked for these details and she was glad that the twenty dollar note she thought had gone to complete waste printing those cards out had in fact proved to be a life-saving decision.

She handed it to a now very upbeat Bonnie who was still mesmerised by the unearthly glint of the keys she still held in a hand, and explained that if there was absolutely anything the lonely and misunderstood brunette needed be it helpful advice or assistance of any sort, to immediately ring the number on the card without delay.

"Thanks I guess." was the confused yet still very grateful reply as her patient nervously slipped both the card and keys in a trouser pocket which she just as nervously proceeded to zip up "That's erm... nice of you. I guess I'll see you then, doctor Loud."

"Of course. Your mother has already booked you in for another session with me a week today and then for five more weeks after that. And don't worry about money, Dr Possible has told me she is prepared to pay the price. She's such a nice person."

"Well er, that's nice. I guess I'll er... see you soon. Evening to you then." stammered Bonnie as she opened the door and left the room gently shutting the door after her as if not sure that was what she really wanted to do.

"And to you too Bonnie." Dr Loud replied as she sank back in her chair and saw the door gently shut. These next few weeks would certainly be interesting.  
Perhaps there really would be some good to come of the terrible and remorseless monster she herself had once been, fortunately secret from her new patient who needed her more than anyone else who had needed her. If her own past meant she could better relate to others about to cross or who had already crossed the moral horizon that she had long crossed with her own family who she could never return to, then she was beyond glad to have had the valuable learning experiences that she did.

She couldn't wait to tell Dr Possible that there was a chance after all that Bonnie's relationships with Connie and Lonnie but more importantly Kim could begin to improve after all. She could even less endure the remaining hour she still had to wait before she could update her good friend Clyde and tell him all about the events of today.  
That would be a long and deep conversation that would most likely take up the remainder of the nearly finished day.

He would certainly be happy to hear the great things she was now doing to help others who had been unlucky enough to become the nasty brute she once was guilty of being.

Several floors below, the red haired woman that was Kim's mother and Dr Possible stood happily watching in wistful silence as Bonnie skipped out of the building and out onto the sidewalk below with a newfound spring in her step.  
One of the best things about the lucrative luxury of being a good doctor was having connections to good and moral friends who were a positive influence and always ready to help in a jam.  
Villains and bad doctor's like Drew Lipsky and Shego had only other bad and unhelpful friends to be with.  
Both a bad influence to themselves and unable to provide them with anything but unhelpful advice and negative energy.  
Negative energy that saw those criminals and other bad people never succeed in what they did.

 **And another chapter comes to a close. And now here is where I thank everyone of you who have read this far into the story which I've worked so hard on for being such great friends and lovely people. Thank you sincerely for your sweet reviews, each one touches my heart so much and bring me to such tears of joy.  
** **I also want to share with you some of my thoughts. One of the things I hate about any film, Superhero movie or not is that the heroes never walk a mile in the villain's shoes. They go around instead being stuck up jerks who never think that maybe the villain should be treated just a little better so that they stop being villains in the first place.  
** **Most of all they never ask just one word. And that word is "Why?" Why did the villains do the bad things they did. Do heroes** **never stop for a second and think whether the villain likes being beaten down by the world around them.**

 **And all because the hero can't criticise themselves and look at their own faults for a change. How hypocritical.**


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